The readings and responses listed here should take you approximately 60 minutes.
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1. Learning Fluency by Turing alum Sara Simon (30 min)
- Your key take-aways OR how you're going to implement specific points (minimum 3):
- Learning by doing isn't always the most effective for everyone. Repition and gained knowledge may be more helpful for someone who needs to defined structure to imbue confidence.
- Key point for me was learning via repition. I feel like I'm able to recall something after hearing it once, and her study of repition learning Mandarin seemed like something I should use on my own at Turing.
- Learning the hard way, by doing, seems like a mantra that I will want to live by at Turing. Creativity is important, but without fluency, it can only get you so far.
2. How to Google Programming Problems Effectively by Lulu Li (15 min)
- Your key take-aways OR how you're going to implement specific points (minimum 3): -#1 Takeaway is understanding that each google search is a learning opportunity. Changing your outlook on a problem can work wonders in regards to your ability to solve it.
- Opening Tabs! Very important time saver. I do not always remember to this while searching through information.
- Understanding problems and understanding your solutions are always very important. I have a curious mind naturally, so I feel like I will naturally avoid this pitfal, but it is something that I want to continue to remind myself of.
3. Do Experienced Programmers Use Google Frequently? by Umer Mansoor (10 min)
- Your key take-aways OR how you're going to implement specific points (minimum 2):
- Googling 1 item per 10 lines of code seems high, but I will probably learn the hard way that googling through something you may be unsure of will save you more time than simple trial/error.
- Understanding that google can help refresh you, or lead you down a path that is simpler/cleaner than the one you originally intended to use by memory. We do tend to forget the smaller/minute details, so it never hurts to confirm ideas or habits.
4. 20 Google Search Tips to Use Google More Efficiently by Joseph Hindy (15 min)
- Briefly describe (in your own words) each of the tips below AND provide an example of a search that captures the sentiment of the tip
- Tip 2: Using quotes tells google to search through the ordered string of words, rather than picking out a singular part of a phrase. For instance, searching "Christmas Cat Sweater" may net more specific results than just Christmas Cat Sweater, which may include search results for items that include any of the three words.
- Tip 3: Using Hyphens to exclude words can help you narrow down your search by excluding paramaters that most people may use the word to search for. For instance, searching Black Panter -movie will help me look up the animal, and not the movie.
- Tip 4: Colon can help you narrow a search to a specific site instead of the whole internet. Can be useful if you're looking up an actor on IMDB but dont want to filter through news stories or gossip sites.
- Tip 9: Using google search to do math is is extremely helpful, as you can search for the value of pi without needing a calculator.
- Tip 13: Searching for answers rather than spoken questions is more helpful, as allows you to find exactly what you're looking for without relying on Google to interpret your problem and hoping that it provides the proper search results.
- Tip 14: Removing 'fluff' words from your search opens less up to interpretation, and allows google to sort through key words that are more relevant to your search.
- Tip 17: Good tip for when you are not finding the answer to your search. Altering your keywords, or searching in a different manner can help you reach the intended solution.
If you have any questions, comments, or confusions from any of the readings that you would an instructor to address, list them below:
Great work, @djavanm! I like your takeaway in the second article that understanding problems and your solutions is important. It is definitely true that I have caused myself to spend more time on a problem by trying to implement a solution I found online that I did not fully understand. I'm glad that you are curious! I have found that my curiosity and need to understand WHY something works has served me well in this industry.