My impression was that in the '90s, when I started my career, everyone used IDEs where you could type your object and it would bring up a menu showing you the methods and the options to that method. I mean, with something like FoxPro or Borland Delphi, even 16 year old me could whip out CRUD apps with very little programming knowledge at all, and without spending too much time looking shit up in the documentation. It was easy
But... my impression is that nearly everyone has switched away from the IDE, and especially has switched away from editors that reduce the need for memorization. Most of the programmers I know spend most of their time in text editors that only do a very minimal amount of the programming work, meaning they've gotta memorize (or look up) a lot more than I had to when I was writing CRUD apps in the '90s. I spend a lot more time in documentation now than I did then, when I'm learning a new language or writing in a language I haven't used recently.
I mean, this is just my impression... maybe I'm just not watching the right programmers. But yeah; my impression is that the need for memorization is growing, not shrinking.
But even if it wasn't, then the time trying to memorize things would assuredly be better spent solving problems using whatever recall you already have and referring to the documentation when you come up short.
You may wish to read the excellent Wired article from 2008 about the somewhat eccentric author of this paper, Piotr Woźniak.
Absolutely everything I memorized, I could have just looked up. I still did have to look things up sometimes. But it really is a lot better to know something than to have to Google it. Not only is it faster, but it also lets you start grouping the things you know well together and think in larger chunks. Just SRS isn't enough to learn anything, or especially how to apply it. But SRS is super efficient at improving you on one dimension that has a positive effect on others. In that sense, it's much like weightlifting is for sports.
