If you don't memorize anything you'll be going to stack overflow for everything. If you spend 10 seconds everytime you need to get the first char of a string, a substring, create an array etc you'll be wasting an awful amount of time. Knowing the core functions is a huge timesaver. Python's regexp functions are arguably not 'core' library functions.
If you spend 10 seconds everytime you need to get the first char of a string, a substring, create an array etc you'll be wasting an awful amount of time.
Not at all. You only need to do it once for the current program you're writing. Now you have a working example to refer back to, within the program. So the lookup time only comes into play the first time you need to do a certain thing. It's a negligible constant factor (about a couple minutes in total per program, and without interrupting flow).
Also, being prejudiced against those who have a bad memory is not helpful.
Knowing the core functions is a huge timesaver.
Not really. By using Google effectively, it's possible to be productive in any language without knowing any of the core functions.
