Is It Cheating to Google Code Solutions?

You're doing the Odin Project and start working on an exercise but get stuck.

You face an issue while writing the code. So, would it be considered cheating if you Google how to solve that issue and use the answer you find on Stack Overflow?

Now, with AI tools like Copilot and ChatGPT, you can simply paste the code. So, is that cheating?

Development is all about knowing how to tackle problems and searching for specific things that can help you reach a solution. It's not about memorizing every tag, function, or property.

Google and AI are tools you should leverage. It's perfectly fine to search for solutions. The key is that you need to understand the code you're copying. Never just copy and paste without knowing what the code actually does. Once you understand it, modify it to fit your needs, or write your own solution based on what you've found.

For example, Googling "What is the answer to the 4th question of the Odin Project?" and copying the response directly is cheating because you won't actually learn anything from it.

On the other hand, if you Google "How to iterate over an array in JavaScript?" and use what you find to build your own solution, then that's completely fine—and it's actually the way anyone should work when programming.

To sum it up, there's nothing wrong with Googling things; it's a great way to learn. But you still need to understand your problem and the answers you find so they can be a useful part of your learning process.

So, avoid Googling the direct answer. Instead, search for the parts of the question you don’t understand or the parts of the code you can't write.