I am not a programmer but I am able to do some "things". Starting with Unix in the 80's (and trying to do C) back when you had a book or two (and nobody to ask any questions). There were many times that I had to work 4 hours or longer just to figure out and iterate (to see what would actually work syntax wise) what I could easily search for today. One book or two, nobody to ask, total trial and error. I always tried to buy as many books as I could (which I typically had to find at a college bookstore an hour away) so I could at least triangulate an answer by a different discussion of the same point from different authors.

Also had those plastic syntax cheat sheets which I picked up.