It's how I learned to code. You depend on good documentation much more - though offline documentation used to be better, these days you're lucky if you get more than the source.

It also makes you more independent when debugging issues no-one else online has seen. You become unafraid of digging into the next level down to find out what's going on.

You kids have it far too easy :)

I started learning about C from books long before I ever had access to a C compiler.

Its a perfectly valid way of learning to code. In fact, there is much to be said for those who make the effort to be productive without needing to refer to external sources for assistance - this truly is a valid way to do computers. I've forced myself to go off-line for many a debug/coding marathon, and it really works the more you do it. Of course its hard, or else it wouldn't be worth doing. The more you do it though, the easier it gets.

Another thing about having a sources-only, no "google-fu" possible/only "local-scope-fu" policy, is that it tends to defeat the cruft. The bloat. The near-infinite gooze that I just know will be the inevitable subject of the response: "software is too complicated for one person to know everything about it, there's just too much of it, etc."

(Of course, its a scope issue. You mathematicians need not flame me in response. I know you don't need to know how to write a compiler to get real work done. There are no absolutes; that is as true of software, unfortunately or fortunately, as everything else..)

I know you're joking, but to put how progressive the program is in context: http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2015/02/12/south_car...

Some of us are old enough that that IS how we learned to code, before most people had heard or had access to the internet! Of course, we weren't learning how to code for the web.