That's what mobile phones are for.
And, also... has it really gotten to the point where developers are unable to write code without the internet?
this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2025
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I think coding offline, without reference material, is mostly a lost art.
That's how I learnt when I started - I didn't have internet access (wasn't very widespread in Australia yet) and didn't have any books. Had to learn everything through trial and error plus any sample code that came bundled with the IDE.
I think these days, there's more abstractions and a much larger reliance on third party packages that don't come bundled with documentation. This is especially the case with languages like JavaScript, where the standard library is missing so much stuff that practically any app larger than "hello world" pulls in a bunch of third party libraries.
It's still possible to write apps without any third party libraries (like in C# which has a fantastic standard library, .NET), but offline documentation (like the old MSDN CDs) has mostly gone away too.
I've been programming in Go for over a decade now, and unless I need to add a new dependency - which is almost never, and nearly always at the start of a project - I don't have to go online for anything. All of the docs - including for the dependencies - are there locally. The only place it hurts is if I'm being lazy and wanting to look online for example code to steal, rather than figure it out myself. That's pretty rare though.
There is an area that requires internet, though, and that's usually around specifications. I've been fighting with dbus and mpris lately, and have been spending more time with the browser than the editor. I'm not sure whether I'd be able to make any progress without examples; I'm developing a love/hate relationship with dbus - it's so absurdly convoluted and seems unnecessarily complex. Only the fact that it hasn't been replaced by something better keeps me believing all of the byzantine metadata crap is somehow necessary. Fucking CORBA isn't this obtuse.
Anyway, maybe she's having to do something with dbus, or trying to understand a Rust compiler error message. Then I can see why she might be blocked by having the internet down.
Plz go (j/k) 😜
Yeah I thought this was going to go somewhere along the lines of ChatGPT being unavailable.
Some companies have everything hosted in a server and you code there. It's awful but it's out there
Yeah, I guess. I also forgot about that low-code/no-code fad that went around a few years ago. I'll bet some companies are still stuck with those shitty decisions.
Hahaha... wait nocode isn't a joke?
Sadly, no.
Personally, I've never downloaded documentation of a programming language, and certainly not any third party libraries.
It's probably language dependent. I used to download Java API docs for faster reference, when I did that for a living. Now I've been using Go for a decade and API docs come as part of the packages.
I mean, is your LSP really calling out to the web every time you pull up a function signature documentation in your editor? That must be frustratingly slow, and inefficient. What language LSP does that?
Yeah, I go through a similar process when my internet's out at home and my brain goes straight to "use phone."
Shit, there have been times when I've just hot-spotted my desktop through my phone.
And they're using laptops so they could just use the phone's hotspot.
The language documentation is installed alongside the language packages.
How is not having Internet stopping someone from coding? Just open up notepad and start typing.
Software dev here,
It doesn't stop you from typing code, but it does drastically hinder the process. You often need to pull up technical documentation (for the language, framework, platform, etc), or search the internet for things, like "C# HttpClient how to serialize JSON with a different naming policy"
Not to mention, if any of your dev resources are online, no Internet prevents you from running your code. Like, if you need to connect to an S3 bucket, AWS instance, or Azure Database
Anyone who says they've never had to look up a command is a liar.
Just do it the old fashioned way. Just imagine the huge shelves full of books* you can show off after, like, 2 months!
*There's also a 50% chance of growing a grey beard
Or if you need a new dependency or library you can't add that
We need the docs
Pff, documentation are like comments in the code...it's only for losers that don't know what they're doing!
They could work for a company that requires remote coding environments.
Don't try to bring logic into this
Not having access to the internet is like not having access to 80% of your brain
So you'll just code 20% of the project and the rest when internet is back up /j
I used to have a client who, when their internet went down would email us about it. From their on-site mail server.
I used to have a client running a small business, who switched off all power strips in the office when he left for the night.
The on-prem server with a bare-metal Exchange installation was plugged into one of them.
The next morning he would call us and complain why his e-mail isn't working at night.
No amount of explaining got through to him.
No amount of explaining got through to him.
I need to know more. He didn't understand the concept of turning a computer off!?
He didn't understand what a server is, but he also didn't understand what M365 or the cloud are, and didn't want to change to something he didn't know.
He was a senile old man who employed 3 people doing nothing, running on momentum and dipping into intergenerational wealth.
The business was built on leveraging connections to other wealthy people and became successful before the Internet was a thing.
Incredible. Glad you were able to take some of his money!
Yeah, at some point we started billing him for the useless discussions he forced on us, when he refused to let us work on his systems cause he didn't understand why updates are necessary.
The minute he disputed the first of these bills, we fired him as a customer.
Then he couldn't find another MSP willing to work with him on his terms for >6 months while his internet, email and file server were down the entire time.
Then I left the company for a job with less useless bullshit.
Before I knew how to code I thought you could just start typing away at any point and get stuff done, nope.
Need thing parser ? Internet. What about writing tests ? Internet, Need to write any web application ever ? Unless you're using vanilla technology...nope, need internet.
First step of any project is literally looking at which open source libraries you'd need in the first place.
Even if you wanted to code raw logic for coding interview questions. Where would you get them without internet ?
Depends on your project, really. I'd just be way less productive without all the information to quickly look up. Can't imagine I could even find a book about Rust or Godot in my local libraries or book shops… perhaps something about the internals of Linux, wouldn't know if it's outdated or not though.
rustup doc works offline.
In these situations, I like to use USB tethering to connect my device to my smartphone's mobile network. It's usually faster than the spotty Wifi that made me use it!
Why would you bother with the cable?
It charges my phone as well.
Probably blocked by company policy.
Yeah, my first thought was wireless hotspot from a cell phone. Tho I'm on a plan with very little data bc I'm mostly on wifi.
I know this is a comic, and no-one wants to go out of their way to find excuses for why they should be working. But have people forgot about dialing zero for the operator assisted calling service?
I've never done that in my life
Smart. That shit costs money.
internet down and looking for the phone number of the isp is a real pain for us without smartphones.