>In many cases, what you're working on doesn't have an answer on the internet.
>That usually means the problem is hard or important, or both.
Really ? If a problem is important someone likely already tackled it. I mean 15 years ago this was less likely, but these days there's so much work in the open and search is very good, when I find there aren't any references for my problem it usually means I misinterpreted the problem or I'm doing something very niche.
No, just that CS/programming is mature enough that important stuff has already been explored so if I'm hitting a dead end either I'm doing something very specific that hasn't been investigated yet or (more likely) I'm not framing the problem correctly.
>That usually means the problem is hard or important, or both.
Really ? If a problem is important someone likely already tackled it. I mean 15 years ago this was less likely, but these days there's so much work in the open and search is very good, when I find there aren't any references for my problem it usually means I misinterpreted the problem or I'm doing something very niche.