I have used search since the mid 80’s. Using the digital equipment search to do source code changes.
Use it to catalog and play Video, Music, Pictures and text (web url’s previous searches etc)

Without search you are wasting your time.

Since there are dozens of posts on becoming a better developer, but no single post with all the advice you need, perhaps, you’ll find this short guide useful.
1. Learn the Skills You Need

Learn the programming basics

“The goal of this guide is to b…

I agree with you. This is one of the main points of the post – the search is not enough to become master programmer, but it could deliver valuable knowledge for solving practical problems. To become a true professional programmer for complex systems, we should gain good experience, understand concepts and higher level development principles.

At the end, vast source of practical examples in the Internet and search get food for our knowledge, which allow to build other forms of knowledge and expertise. Therefore, good search skills make us more effective in overall.

The point that alarmed me somewhat though (and maybe I missed the point), is that mastery of search techniques does not alone make you an ‘effective’ programmer. Resourceful, yes, but being an effective developer from personal experience is about growing an indepth, deep rooted experience and understanding so that I know what will happen if I use approach A instead of approach B.

I have found personally from my own experience and career growth that was an important lesson to learn. Initially when you have limited experience with a programming language you are ignorant to a lot of factors and have significant impact – how maintainable is this approach, how scalable is this approach, is this the most suitable approach, how will this approach perform? etc, – this list is quite lengthy. My point is, as a new developer I believe many developers code blind to this type of information. They find something that works and they use it. You approach to searching and finding some code, copying and pasting it, is following in this mindset – it works so I’ll use it. There is nothing wrong with this approach when you don’t know any better, but as a new developer the issue is that you don’t even realize that you don’t know any better, it works right, so it has to be right. You only realize after time and gaining practical experience of seeing what works and understanding how it works that you start to become effective.

Initially when I started developing with Java I was at a fairly competent level after about 2 maybe 3 years of hands on experience and self-taught, using my knowledge from other programming languages (C, C++, PowerBuilder) to help me pick up the language. It wasn’t until after about 7 years of daily, hands on experience that I felt like I was in a position where I could use the language and it’s features effectively with a deep rooted experience, and it made me realize that of all the years prior where I thought I was an expert and was so far from being even close, and barely using the language effectively.