10 tips to go from a beginner to an intermediate developer

#2: Learn advanced search techniques, tactics, and strategies
More and more, being a good developer is not just about your skill, but your skill at finding information. Simply put, modern languages and development frameworks are too large for most people to remember much of them. As a result, your ability to get work done is often dependent upon your ability to perform research. Unfortunately, knowing how to find accurate, high-quality information is more than just heading to TechRepublic for the answer or typing a few words into your search engine of choice.

"Techniques," "tactics," and "strategies" may sound like synonyms, but they are not. The techniques you need to learn are the advanced search systems of your favorite search engine; you need to learn things such as the Boolean operators, how to filter results (negative keywords, domain restrictions, etc.), what role word order plays, and more. So essentially, RTFM.

You should learn tactics such as knowing how to approach any particular search and knowing what you should you actually look for. Errors are easy — just look for the error code — but keyword selection on many searches is much more difficult.

With regard to strategies, you need to learn things such as what search engines to use (hint: general purpose search engines are not always the right answer), which sites to visit before going to a general purpose search engine, and even which message boards to post to for help.

next blog for more tips 

To be continued :)