Using flash cards to improve your programming skills | Hacker News Reader

Using flash cards to improve your programming skills

peterevjan.com

5 pointsevjan7 comments

If anyone wants to try this method, check out http://cardflashapp.com/ which I hope to make into a simpler alternative to ANKI (still very much a work in progress though)

Cool!

What parts of Anki do you hope to simplify?

Hi evjan, just saw your reply. Here's a few ways I want to improve on Anki: - "just works" deck importing from various formats (including Anki) - Card formatting with Markdown - Better deck sharing, forking and subscribing. Commenting on decks and collaborative shared deck creation. (I'm considering piggybacking on Github for this feature set) - Slicker, more user-friendly UI - Progress-updates and study-reminder emails - Better sense of progression and achievement through charts and study-session summaries.

Most important however is creating something you don't need to install on your computer, looks good, and that "just works".

I and I think everyone else heard of spaced repetition software from that Wired article in ... 2007, was it?

Here's my favourite writeup so far:

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

My main problem is having a fixed time to do the reviews.

The second "problem" is that repetition just helps you to remember. Until you understand what you're memorising, it's useless. (This is the first thing you're told, but I'll tell you again).

So the truly hard work -- wrestling with material until you get it -- is still there. You just get to cut down on how often you'll have to do it in future.

You're probably right. If Wired wrote about it 6 years ago there's probably no point in repeating it, in spite of people telling me it was interesting and something new to them. Maybe they were lying to be nice to me.

But thanks for the link, I found that useful. Even though it repeated stuff from the Wired article.

Remembering stuff is only the beginning, yes. But you need it nonetheless.

I think you should be more sarcastic, that definitely belongs on HN and in no way makes you seem unnecessarily defensive.

Edit:

OK, I'm not being constructive either. But here's the thing about good ideas: you are not the first to have them. I am not the first to have them. I even wrote a disclaimer on my website about this exact problem.

Cracking the shits because the first comment -- on a site with thousands of people who read widely -- is about someone else who's had the same idea is kinda pointless, don't you think?

When I read the Wired article, I had the same idea too. I later wrote a research proposal on testing it on freshman comp sci students. After that I read Jack Kinsella's article. After Jack Kinsella came Derek Sivers, who at least had the grace to say "oh neat, this Jack Kinsella article is good too" and link to it.

My original comment was more about how ideas can be traced back to common beginnings, how a blooming garden can sometimes come from a single seed. But I guess you felt it was a personal attack, a swift kick in the guts from another faceless HN boo-parade. Well I'm sorry you feel that way.

Apology accepted.

The tone in the first part of your original comment was condescending and you needed to be told so. Maybe you thought your statement hinted at "how ideas can be traced back to common beginnings", but you did come across as a boo-parader. There was nothing blooming about that.

And no, I never think it is pointless telling people they are rude. Otherwise, rude people think their behaviour is accepted.

The rest of your original comment was constructive and I enjoyed that.

I refer to Anki in the preso and I hope it doesn't seem like I am trying to claim that I invented spaced repetition.

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