Effective Googling for short names

Question

Every now and then, I need to lookup some keyword or function in a language that is very small, and/or has special characters..
Examples include
the \'as\' keyword i

Answer 1

for symbols I often have to type out the symbol (although google is getting better with symbols.)

e.g.: http://www.google.com/search?q=unix+%22dot+dot%22 or http://www.google.com/search?q=ruby+%22dollar+sign%22

Answer 2

Well for ruby why wouldn't you search on ruby builtin globals? I'm assuming you have enough knowledge of what you looking for that you can describe it?

Answer 3

Using quotes helps a lot. For instance, if you search for:

python "as keyword"

then the first hit is "The as keyword ((An Unofficial) Python Reference Wiki)". Other hits are also about the "as" keyword.

Other than that, I'd look for pages which deal with all Python keywords, and find the relevant entry.

However, for symbols it's a lot harder. Having the right terminology helps a lot - if you know that "?:" is the conditional operator in C#, it's easier to look for. That's where a good book (or again, a list of operators/keywords) helps to put symbols into language.