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CodeProject and/or StackOverflow. CP for articles/tutorials, SO for specific questions/answers. Then, if that fails to meet my needs, where I look next depends on many complex factors.
«One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.» Salvador Dali
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But why would there be? Develop coding strategies that work for you. Hasn't anybody ever asked you whether you've created an application and then have you ever given it to friends to use? And what was your answer?
Yes, big mistake.
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You couldn't google for solutions to problems as this in-house proprietary framework is only used internally.
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Time to put it on GitHub then 
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Although I partially agree with Chill60 below... I first try having a look to vendors site, it often doesn't help that much, but I still think it is the best place to start with for a first contact with the technology, the manual might have flaws or even be mediocre, but you still have the datasheets and many other useful things (depending on what new stuff are you on).
Then I start looking online...
If I find a "definitive guide" then I surely have a look on it, but I still have a look to other related sites in the net, specially forums or articles portals. Not the first time that the "definitive guide to XXX" ends being even worse that the vendors documents.
If I do not find something useful I give a try to some of the results in the first two pages of the internet search machine.
And if still not happy... I bitch / rail at it and say "fvck you" and start playing around on my own until I find out how the elephant does it work.
Luckily, I have to reach the last point very very seldom.
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Quote: Those who created the tech write the best docs.
Never, ever, in the last 40 years have I ever found this to be true. Especially M$.
Besides, technical writing is a very different skill to writing code (good or bad)
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Laying in bed this morning, for some reason the thought occurred to me how much a person's memory has went down as an asset in development.
Back in the old days, there wasn't online documentation. You had to find the physical manual, then look up whatever you're after. Very time consuming, so people who were fortunate enough to have really good memory had a distinct advantage in development time.
Not so much anymore. Those folks might save two seconds over a google search, so there's no significant delta.
I think the advantage now goes to those who can quickly scan and understand the online docs now, but not sure of that.
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Maybe I'm just too young to remember what you are talking about since I started coding in 1986 but didn't do so professionally until about 1996.
Even then though, it wasn't about memorization, it was about how fast you could learn new things. By the time I "memorized" most of the important core COM and OLE/ActiveX interfaces like IDispatch and IPersistStream we were already moving on to COM+ and then .NET
My memory has always been dodgy, but I've never had it be a problem in software development, because I don't have time to sit on anything I've learned. As soon as I use something it's on to some newer tech.
YMMV
Real programmers use butterflies
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agolddog wrote:
Back in the old days, there wasn't online documentation. You had to find the physical manual, then look up whatever you're after. Very time consuming, so people who were fortunate enough to have really good memory had a distinct advantage in development time.
Or having access to a good library and knowing where to find what.
As Einstein said...
Quote: “Never memorize something that you can look up.”
My memory works in a very weird way. Sometimes I remember things that I didn't thought I was even realizing, and sometimes I forget things that I know are important and want to remember them.
During college I had some big discussions with the professors of a subject and at the end I had to speak with the rector, because I officially asked for a "speaker" for some huge equations handed out in the exam form. I managed to get it with the argument:
"Once the exam is over, nobody is going to remember the equation and will have to look it up, so why do we need to know it by heart in the exam? The most important thing is to know HOW TO USE IT and what changes are triggered by the modification of which parameter... we are engineers not lawyers"
And have been like that in most of my professional life too.
Being an automation engineer long time I have had to learn new tech and new processes in every single project I have worked too. I had my survival tool-kit and the rest was 90% project specific stuff that I mostly had never seen before and probably would never seen again after that.
That's why I got used to not even trying to remember many concrete details and to concentrate in the procedures. Additionally being at reasoning / analyzing / logic thinking helped me a lot.
That's why I prefer to learn on the fly and probably forget many of the stuff once I finish my task and have to focus in something different.
agolddog wrote: I think the advantage now goes to those who can quickly scan and understand the online docs now, but not sure of that.
Yes and no / it depends.
If it is something you need in a periodic basis, either you end learning it or you lose a lot of time looking up each time you need it.
But for cases as I described above, specific things that only come once or twice in a professional life... screw it.
Additionally... Time ago you had a hand full of programming languages, today you need an :elephanting: huge memory (best if photographic memory) to cope with all that information.
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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And nobody writes documentation anymore anyway ... 
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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And if they do, it is poorly written and confusing. 
the engine of my train of thought is breaking down! Again!
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are worse than no docs at all. There's a new Raspberry Pi Pico, I bought 2 of them and trying to learn how to use them and some of the docs are really good but some are misleading and just plain wrong.
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Mike Hankey wrote: Bad docs...
... No bisquit! 
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
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The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
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Never argue with a fool. Onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.
Mark Twain
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