Comment by dasil003 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dasil003 | Hacker News Reader

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I hate this linkbait title hyperbole. It takes whatever moderately good points he had and makes them seem ridiculously wrong-headed. I understand being a blowhard is often necessary to be seen and heard in American business culture, but if you don't really know your shit you end up looking like a douchebag to anyone with half a clue.

For instance, the context-switching cost is very true. It's better to focus on one thing at a time, and multi-tasking is endemic to our society. If you can focus on one thing for a few days with no distraction you can really accomplish mountains especially compared to the usual email/social media distraction dance that is seemingly normal for anyone with a smart phone these days.

However on the flip side, compressing learning that is intended to be absorbed over a few months into a couple weeks of sleepless nights is a surefire way to make sure your retention is absolutely squalid. We used to call this cramming, it allows you to pass an exam, but it's well-known that it doesn't lead to much in the way of long-term learning.

"We used to call this cramming, it allows you to pass an exam, but it's well-known that it doesn't lead to much in the way of long-term learning."

Learning in a compressed time-frame can be highly effective. The problem with college kids is they stop learning and practicing right after the exam.

If they kept spending a few hours each week for the next few months they would retain a large chunk of it.

Yes they would, however that would be adding a healthy dose of "slow and steady" to the equation, wouldn't it?

Not really. Slow and steady would be splitting the entire learning material over a longer period. This would be learning everything as fast as possible (cramming), then taking a couple weeks break, then cramming again. It is indeed much more effective.

(the general case is much less explored, and the article provides no evidence either way, unfortunately)

You assume that all learning takes place over the cramming phase, then all practices is about keeping the knowledge fresh.

It is most likely that the cramming phase is an effective though limited way to break the novice threshold, though any knowledge gained here will be by necessity shallow. A later phase of slow and deliberate practices allows this initial mental structures to be settled in a pattern of competence an maybe provide the seedlings of insight that may be cultivated into true mastery of the subject.

I don't think cramming then taking a couple of weeks break and then cramming again is an effective strategy. It only works with tasks that have a slow rate of decay.

Good for making progress on a side project and yet horrible for learning.

I think slow and steady combined with a few sprints each year is optimal. I do 1 hour/day most of the year and then 40+ hours/week for two non-consecutive months.

Well, I guess we're mostly arguing definitions here. If you do 1 hour/day, but fit as much knowledge as you can into that hour, are you cramming for one hour, or taking it slow and steady?

In practical terms, spaced repetition is with no doubt the best method for remembering things, and you could either see it as slow and steady, or repetetive cramming. For understanding things, I don't know of a good method; but it seems like understanding 'keeps better' as long as you remember the relevant facts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition

Not specifically about learning, but I wonder how many half-finished projects sit in garages and basements. How many outdoor fire pits are partly built, some guy thinking 'Man I should have just done it in one go.' Desires and whims change on a regular basis for most people, making slow, prolonged progress a challenge for many people.

To be frank, you sound just as hard-lined against this guy's idea as he is hard-lined for the idea.

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