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Anki as Learning Superpower: Computer Science Edition

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Re: Anki as Learning Superpower: Computer Science Edition

#4
post #2

> Anki as Learning Superpower If it's a superpower, it's at best a rote learning superpower. Can you use Anki to learn quantum field theory, and solve the lamb shift problem without looking at the existing solutions? Cut out the hyperbole please.

Yeah, somehow there's always a lot of love for spaced repetition even though it doesn't help with comprehension. I believe re learning complicated topics is better than mugging up jargon.

Re: Anki as Learning Superpower: Computer Science Edition

#7
post #6

Anki is missing a button: "I don't care". For example, I don't care if for the question "In ruby, how do I get the previous regex match" the answer is "$&". If I ever need it, I'll just look it up.

You can just flag those cards and remove them from your deck. It's all about having it personalized.

Re: Anki as Learning Superpower: Computer Science Edition

#8
post #4
post #2

> Anki as Learning Superpower If it's a superpower, it's at best a rote learning superpower. Can you use Anki to learn quantum field theory, and solve the lamb shift problem without looking at the existing solutions? Cut out the hyperbole please.

Yeah, somehow there's always a lot of love for spaced repetition even though it doesn't help with comprehension. I believe re learning complicated topics is better than mugging up jargon.

Rote learning absolutely does help with comprehension. If you understand all of the words in

“ Tod mach’s mir leicht, wenn du kommst vor deiner Zeit” reading it and understanding it is trivial. If you have to look up each word individually your comprehension will at best be enormously slowed. The same principle applies if what you’re reading is a chemical formula, a logical proof or a description of a historical event. Knowing the 200 or so most important events of the French Revolution by date with two sentences of explanation for context makes reading further on it enormously more productive.

Re: Anki as Learning Superpower: Computer Science Edition

#9
post #2

> Anki as Learning Superpower If it's a superpower, it's at best a rote learning superpower. Can you use Anki to learn quantum field theory, and solve the lamb shift problem without looking at the existing solutions? Cut out the hyperbole please.

Perhaps an interesting article for you: Augmenting Long-Term Memory [1] by QUANTUM PHYSICIST Michael Nielson (emphasis mine)

[1] http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html

Re: Anki as Learning Superpower: Computer Science Edition

#10
post #6

Anki is missing a button: "I don't care". For example, I don't care if for the question "In ruby, how do I get the previous regex match" the answer is "$&". If I ever need it, I'll just look it up.

If you don’t care, don’t add it to your deck.

What’s that you say? You downloaded premade decks? Don’t do that! Constructing your deck yourself is an important part of the learning process.

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