Ask HN: Is your memory as bad as mine?

Woahhh cool that there is a word for it! I most definitely have a similar memory (autobiographical)...and am 30!

I've been learning how to navigate it - for example "tell me about a time that..." is extremely difficult for me. But if I change the prompt to "think of a time when I was living at my grandparents house in the winter" or similar, I can begin to recall things, specificity is key. I also have difficulty when people are like "remember X time", and nothing will come up, and I'll have to ask further questions to try and trigger the memory, often when it triggers the whole thing can flood in.

I also find that my mind doesn't typically rehash old things, the mind isn't stewing in memories, it's usually in futurescapes or random thought lines on topics. I actually think this is one of the reasons for me not being able to pull it up quickly and needing specific ways to trigger the memory, it's like the memories are in cold storage.

Yes, very bad memory with regards to details. Which makes it frustrating listening to people here rave about command line utilities and vim shortcuts.

I'm the same age as you, and it depends on context. As a kid I could remember pretty much everything, and as I got old my attention span has slipped and I can easily forget stuff that someone JUST told me. I see it more as a case of forgetting to pay attention more than anything.

Random fact that interest me, those stick around for years with no effort.

For work, and I suspect that what you care most about: Take notes, always be taking notes. Doesn't matter where, as long as you can look things up relatively easy. This is something I've just started doing a few months ago and it has helped immensely. It can even make you look like a blood genius when you can hand over a complete set of meeting notes to your boss. I'm sure it's not for everyone, but it helps me stay focus on the person who's talking and having notes is a godsend if you're in a meeting regarding a task you won't be working on right away.

TLDR; You're probably fine, but consider if you're paying attention to what you're doing and regardless: For work, always take notes, it will help you.

Probably mildly depressed. No substance usage, little alcohol. Perhaps I should moderate even more on sugar consumption though.

I'm like this. I've been paid to write code in perhaps ten to twelve languages over a twenty-two year career but if you put me in front of a blank notepad.exe and told me to solve fizzbuzz in any language I chose, I'd struggle to complete it in any of them without made-up function names or incorrect syntax or something. I constantly crib from surrounding code, and google the basics, copy-paste a starter block, or rely more than usual on autocomplete when starting from scratch.

I'm entirely sure I convinced one interviewer I was one of those much-feared "fakers" when I used the wrong method invocation syntax in a language I'd worked in for years and had written code in as recently as the prior week.