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I'd love to read more about how you use Anki. I've been using it for random things like the NATO phonetic alphabet or state capitals, but I've been wanting to try and create my own decks. I've just been having trouble wrapping my mind around how to turn knowledge like a library's documentation into cards. Any tips?

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I've been using Anki to get fluent in Ruby and JavaScript.

See the article, “Memorizing a programming language using spaced repetition software” here:

http://sivers.org/srs

I use some super-dumb examples on that page, but I hope the points above the examples help.

Also make sure to read Piotr Wozniak's awesome “Twenty Rules of Formulating Knowledge”:

http://www.supermemo.com/articles/20rules.htm

(He's the author of SuperMemo, a predecessor to Anki.)

I was originally inspired to try it by this:

http://www.jackkinsella.ie/2011/12/05/janki-method.html

The trickiest part is knowing whether I am memorising trivialities and triteness or whether this will lead to deep understanding.

I've known about SRS for quite a while; I even wrote a project proposal to study whether it could improve academic performance of freshman compsci students.

It wasn't until I flamed out embarrassingly in a tech interview a few weeks ago that I decided that I really need to be mastering this stuff, not just bluffing my way through it.

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