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0 pointsArisaka12y ago0 comments

Wait a moment. "tar commandline flags"? When I was still learning how to program, the general advice was to avoid memorizing things you can easily look up, like language syntax, framework functionality or commandline flags, and just let it happen. In fact, I recently caught myself skimming Nest.js docs to make cards to learn how to use Nest.js BEFORE I even start working on my project, and almost felt like I'm procrastinating instead of being productive.

I don't disagree with how Anki is effective at memorization, because that would be like disagreeing with the effectiveness of space repetition as a principle. I'm just wondering if it's worth putting stuff like "vim keybinds" in - John Carmack reportedly did that to check what's the fuss about Vim.

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jpalomaki2y ago

At least for me this often means, that I just keep on lookin up the stuff over and over again. Takes some deliberate effort to actually store some obscure things in my memory.

When I was still active with Anki, I was mostly picking up some random things I knew I would need fairly often and included those in my deck.

OJFord2y ago

But that means you're doing tar flag flashcards more often than you're using those tar flags? Because otherwise, and for me, the CLI usage is the flashcard? Using them is what teaches me and keeps fresh the commands and flags that I most often use.

Version4672y ago

Not necessarily. Hypothetical example, but let's say I use some obscure tar command twice a month. That's too far apart for me to remember it, but often enough that it would annoy me to look it up every time. Chuck it into anki and I have a short time where I repeat it often enough so that it sticks and after that the time between repetitions quickly becomes far longer than the 14 day interval where I actually use the command.

And now I never have to look it up again :)

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ants_everywhere2y ago

This is the issue I've found with SRS style memorization in general. It's basically the definition of overfitting.

alabhyajindal2y ago

He should have used Vim instead of memorizing it's keybindings. That makes no sense at all.

Swalden1232y ago

I managed to finally switch to using Vim after years of attempts, once I used Anki to help me memorize the common commands. I was less frustrated when using it day to day.

Lapha2y ago

Well, he absolutely should have been using Vim, he instead spent the week learning vi.

WuxiFingerHold2y ago

I've done both. It was very effective.

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