Face it, in the days before the internet systems were far less complex, it was *possible* to know just about everything there was to know about a system.

Today? Not so much.

Take SQL server. Thousands of developers over tens of years. No documentation worth having. (What ever happened to the art of clarity in documentation?) Of *course* you're going to need the net, with all its deeming masses squirreling away tidbits of knowledge gleaned through serendipity. It isn't a matter of *our* laziness, it's the vendors cutting corners and trying to beat everyone else to market with the latest whiz-bang.

Simplicity is *hard*. Elegance is *extremely* hard. So the vendors slather the new goodness on top of the old, till you have the monstrosities we have today.

*Undocumented* monstrosities, I might add...because clarity is also hard and takes time.

Given that, I'll take the net. I'd rather have a system that was well thought out and does most of the grunt work for me, but failing that (and given vendor realities) I'll take what I can get.