When it comes to programming, I no longer have any idea how quickly or accurately I can type. I also have a reduced memory of the objects I use on a daily basis, either written my myself, or contained in libraries I frequent.
Why am I able to get away with this reduced set of skills? We have all come to know and love the solution, Intellisense. I remember my first Cobol class in college. We had 30 minutes to enter and compile our program. In order to complete the project within your given timeframe you pretty much had to write the program on paper or in a text editor so that you were able to complete your task in your allotted time.
I’m grateful that we no longer have those kinds of constraints. The PC revolution banished them decades ago. Still, I appreciate the code permanently memorized from my earlier days. I can write SQL without falling back on intellisense. I pretty much remember the majority of the syntax without having to look it up.
Is there value in that hard core memory for people growing up in the Intellesense world? Does the memorization provide value when you can simply look things up or begin typing and the correct option appears. What do you think? Leave a comment or send an email to btaylor@sswug.org.
Cheers,
Ben