What has plagued me is not a notion that an experienced engineer needs to look stuff up, but a similar one that feels related: that as an experienced engineer I should be able to immediately incorporate a new thing I have no experience with, right then and there in a pairing session.
It comes in the form of "go ahead and install this thing, and throw this config value into it, and it should just work". And my reaction is "I want to read up on that thing first. I want to know what stuff it writes to my computer and where and what paradigms it uses. I want to think about how it will best integrate with the tools and workflows we have already. And then once I've done that, I'll probably be able to move forward with it comfortably. Then I'll want to document it so it becomes part of the regular setup others do when they onboard onto the project."
Just this past week when I said a version of this, I got a reaction like there is something wrong with me.
It comes in the form of "go ahead and install this thing, and throw this config value into it, and it should just work". And my reaction is "I want to read up on that thing first. I want to know what stuff it writes to my computer and where and what paradigms it uses. I want to think about how it will best integrate with the tools and workflows we have already. And then once I've done that, I'll probably be able to move forward with it comfortably. Then I'll want to document it so it becomes part of the regular setup others do when they onboard onto the project."
Just this past week when I said a version of this, I got a reaction like there is something wrong with me.