Why I Stopped Googling and Started Reading the Docs

There's a reflex that most developers have: encounter a problem, open a browser tab, type it into Google, click the Stack Overflow link, copy the answer, move on. I spent years doing this and called it productive.

The problem is that Stack Overflow answers are often written for a slightly different problem than the one you have. They're optimized for votes, not for teaching. They show you what to type, not why it works. And they age poorly — the accepted answer for a Go question from 2018 might be completely wrong in 2025.

I started reading documentation after a humbling experience: I asked a colleague why some code I'd copied wasn't working, and they opened the official docs, pointed to a paragraph I'd never read, and the answer was right there. Unambiguous. Up to date. With examples.

Go's standard library documentation is genuinely good. It explains not just what functions do but why they exist. The spec, while dense, answers questions that no Stack Overflow answer fully answers. pkg.go.dev has the whole standard library cross-referenced and searchable.

The time you spend reading documentation compounds. Stack Overflow answers teach you solutions. Documentation teaches you the system. After a year of reaching for the docs first, I find that I reach for Stack Overflow far less often, and when I do, I can actually tell whether the answer applies to my situation.

I still Google. I just use it to find the documentation, not to avoid reading it.