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Oh interesting, I have never seen Anki (https://apps.ankiweb.net/ https://apps.ankiweb.net/) being used for large blocks of source code. Anki is an open source

Oh interesting, I have never seen Anki (https://apps.ankiweb.net/ https://apps.ankiweb.net/) being used for large blocks of source code. Anki is an open source application (desktop + mobile) for spaced repetition learning (aka flashcards). It's a very popular tool among people who want to learn languages (and basically anything else you want to remember). There are many shared decks (https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks/ https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks/). Creating and formatting cards is also possible and pretty easy. If you are planning to learn a language or anything else give Anki a try. I used it for all of my language learning efforts. With this least my vocabulary is rocking solid.

byebyetech 8y ago
I don't think Anki supposed to be used that way. Each card should be recallable under 10 seconds. So it should be only few lines of content. More content you put in one Anki card, it will take you more time and eventually you will stop looking at the card. A failure scenario.
- dan7678 8y ago
  Yeah, I used Anki a ton in college, and doing things like this was always futile and frustrating. Flashcards are fantastic for learning short bouts of things, but not large structures like many lines of code. Additionally I'd say even if you succeeded in memorizing it this way, it's not making you a better problem solver, which is what actually matters for that particular subject; you're just (temporarily) better at regurgitating some lines of code.
  - Twisol 8y ago
    I agree in general, but it seems like there might be a particularly constrained situation where it makes sense. I can usually look at a medium-sized block of code and suss out its intent in a short amount of time, even if I don't know all of the details about its behavior or how it works. A deck of flashcards curated from examples like that might be useful for recognizing the higher-level patterns that drive that intuition. I wouldn't really know for sure; I took the long way 'round (time and experience) for gaining that skill. But it at least seems plausible. Of course, the linked article isn't this.
- madethemcry 8y ago
  Yeah that might be the reason I have never seen this. But whatever works for oneself is fine and worth to share. There are quite nice deck ideas: + Facts about friends + Standard Library of your programming language (https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/3937203746) + Bird Voices (https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/2088996377) More here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Anki/comments/5ka1ny/what_have_you_used_anki_to_memorize/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Anki/comments/5ka1ny/what_have_you_...
nemo1618 8y ago
I've been experimenting with Anki recently. I loaded up a deck of popular fonts, with the goal being to memorize them to the point where I could recognize them in the real world. Each card contains the sentence, "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog," and you have to identify what font it's written in. The first day was really tough; I missed cards over and over again. 20 new cards (the default) is probably too many for this type of study. But I kept at it, once per day, and today (a week later) I can recognize nearly every font in the deck, and the ones that I have trouble with are very similar to other fonts (which is a useful thing to know in its own right; you can start to group fonts into "families" with a common ancestor). Pretty cool! There's just one problem: so far, this hasn't translated into any ability to recognize fonts in the real world. I can think of a few reasons why. First, there are a LOT of fonts out there; even the "most popular" ones don't show up all that frequently. This is especially true for business logos, which like to use unusual fonts to make themselves stand out. Secondly, I think studying by memorizing a single sentence has caused me to "overfit!" For example, there's a font that I can instantly recognize (Minion Pro) by how the 'T' and 'h' look together at the start of the sentence. I don't pay attention to anything else about the font, because that single feature is enough to distinguish it from the rest of the deck. And this turns out to be true for most fonts: Today Sans has a funny-looking 'w', Syntax has a funny-looking 'x', etc. So if I see a logo written in Today Sans, but it doesn't contain a 'w', I can't recognize it! Similarly, because the cards only contain the one sentence, which is entirely lowercase except for the 'T', I can't identify any fonts from an uppercase writing sample. What I can do is say, "Hmm, I don't know what that font is, but it definitely has a lot in common with Myriad..." and then I look it up and find out that the actual font is Warnock, which was designed by the same guy (Robert Slimbach) who designed Myriad. So yeah, Anki is pretty cool, but an unintended side effect is that it can give you a striking sense of how a classification algorithm "feels" from the inside. :)
- ChristianGeek 8y ago
  Have you tried WhatTheFont? https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/whatthefont/id304304134?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/whatthefont/id304304134?mt=8
- Kagerjay 8y ago
gradys 8y ago
Michael Nielsen just this month published an essay on using spaced repetition (and especially Anki) to augment long-term memory. It seems to be part of his work with YC Research. I highly recommend it if this kind of thing interests you. It gives a solid overview of the theory and practical lessons from his daily use of Anki over the last few years: http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html
- madethemcry 8y ago
  I stoped after the fourth paragraph just to tell you that this article hit the nail. Really interesting article so far. Thank you so much!
- chrisweekly 8y ago
  Wow. Read the whole (lengthy) essay and added it to evernote. Inspiring stuff. Thanks for sharing!
- id_rsa 8y ago
  Thanks for sharing. I agree with his advice about keeping the flashcards short. It is easy to get into a flow while answering the cards, but when one of them is too long, it disrupts the flow. Try breaking down larger cards into smaller bits of information.
Kagerjay 8y ago
The problem I have with using anki for 2+ years is I get too lazy to make cards. It feels like tedious data entry work, I'm wandering if I'm the only one that feels this way? I have to run anki, open the add item panel, figure out how to format the card / phrase the question, pick a deck, pick a card type, move the mouse over click tag, enter tag, write it down, press enter, minimize the application. I would to do this several times throughout the day since I learn things inconsistently. My productivity tanks when I use anki. Because I also have many other tools for jotting notes, emails, slack, blog, etc. I already tried practically all the anki plugins out there too This is mostly for computer science / programming. If I used anki for learning a language, I would just mass create all my cards at one time or use a curated deck.
- ivanhoe 8y ago
  In my experience creating cards (or writing down the words into a notebook) is an essential part of the process. I'm not sure about the exact mechanics of it, but for me writing a word implants it in my memory much deeper than just reading it.
  - Kagerjay 8y ago
    I totally get that too, I write/draw things down and find it helps remembering things easier. Especially math. But I find the time it takes to transfer that thought onto anki is so painstakingly slow. Anki doesn't even have a dedicated shortcut key for minimizing / maximizing the add card panel either, at least for windows. don't get me wrong here I love using anki and ankidroid but adding cards is a PITA. I add cards only on desktop anki because neither ankidroid nor ankiwebapp support easy-image formatting. But I do add cards from ankidroid if its a picture of some handwritten / whiteboard drawings I've made.
    - kungtotte 8y ago
      I've been sort of meta-learning for the past couple of weeks, reading about study methods and note taking and memory techniques, etc. and one prevailing theme regardless of the method is that repetition and rephrasing are key to internalise the information. E.g. you learn and retain the information far more efficiently if you take the route of read -> write note -> create flashcards from the note. As opposed to autogenerating the flashcards from the source material, for example. The process of formulating the note first and then formulating the flashcards means you have to actually think about the material in two stages instead of just performing data entry. In my experience it doesn't take all that much time, and if you're really interested in learning a topic is it unreasonable to expect that you have to spend say 10% longer with any given book or article to perform this review process? If you spend a bit of time up front creating a structured approach and stick to it, it'll become very quick. Here's an interesting article as a reference: https://robertheaton.com/2018/06/25/how-to-read/ https://robertheaton.com/2018/06/25/how-to-read/

byebyetech 8y ago

I don't think Anki supposed to be used that way. Each card should be recallable under 10 seconds. So it should be only few lines of content. More content you put in one Anki card, it will take you more time and eventually you will stop looking at the card. A failure scenario.

dan7678 8y ago
Yeah, I used Anki a ton in college, and doing things like this was always futile and frustrating. Flashcards are fantastic for learning short bouts of things, but not large structures like many lines of code. Additionally I'd say even if you succeeded in memorizing it this way, it's not making you a better problem solver, which is what actually matters for that particular subject; you're just (temporarily) better at regurgitating some lines of code.
- Twisol 8y ago
  I agree in general, but it seems like there might be a particularly constrained situation where it makes sense. I can usually look at a medium-sized block of code and suss out its intent in a short amount of time, even if I don't know all of the details about its behavior or how it works. A deck of flashcards curated from examples like that might be useful for recognizing the higher-level patterns that drive that intuition. I wouldn't really know for sure; I took the long way 'round (time and experience) for gaining that skill. But it at least seems plausible. Of course, the linked article isn't this.
madethemcry 8y ago
Yeah that might be the reason I have never seen this. But whatever works for oneself is fine and worth to share. There are quite nice deck ideas: + Facts about friends + Standard Library of your programming language (https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/3937203746) + Bird Voices (https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/2088996377) More here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Anki/comments/5ka1ny/what_have_you_used_anki_to_memorize/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Anki/comments/5ka1ny/what_have_you_...

nemo1618 8y ago

I've been experimenting with Anki recently. I loaded up a deck of popular fonts, with the goal being to memorize them to the point where I could recognize them in the real world. Each card contains the sentence, "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog," and you have to identify what font it's written in. The first day was really tough; I missed cards over and over again. 20 new cards (the default) is probably too many for this type of study. But I kept at it, once per day, and today (a week later) I can recognize nearly every font in the deck, and the ones that I have trouble with are very similar to other fonts (which is a useful thing to know in its own right; you can start to group fonts into "families" with a common ancestor). Pretty cool! There's just one problem: so far, this hasn't translated into any ability to recognize fonts in the real world. I can think of a few reasons why. First, there are a LOT of fonts out there; even the "most popular" ones don't show up all that frequently. This is especially true for business logos, which like to use unusual fonts to make themselves stand out. Secondly, I think studying by memorizing a single sentence has caused me to "overfit!" For example, there's a font that I can instantly recognize (Minion Pro) by how the 'T' and 'h' look together at the start of the sentence. I don't pay attention to anything else about the font, because that single feature is enough to distinguish it from the rest of the deck. And this turns out to be true for most fonts: Today Sans has a funny-looking 'w', Syntax has a funny-looking 'x', etc. So if I see a logo written in Today Sans, but it doesn't contain a 'w', I can't recognize it! Similarly, because the cards only contain the one sentence, which is entirely lowercase except for the 'T', I can't identify any fonts from an uppercase writing sample. What I can do is say, "Hmm, I don't know what that font is, but it definitely has a lot in common with Myriad..." and then I look it up and find out that the actual font is Warnock, which was designed by the same guy (Robert Slimbach) who designed Myriad. So yeah, Anki is pretty cool, but an unintended side effect is that it can give you a striking sense of how a classification algorithm "feels" from the inside. :)

ChristianGeek 8y ago
Have you tried WhatTheFont? https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/whatthefont/id304304134?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/whatthefont/id304304134?mt=8
Kagerjay 8y ago

gradys 8y ago

Michael Nielsen just this month published an essay on using spaced repetition (and especially Anki) to augment long-term memory. It seems to be part of his work with YC Research. I highly recommend it if this kind of thing interests you. It gives a solid overview of the theory and practical lessons from his daily use of Anki over the last few years: http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html

madethemcry 8y ago
I stoped after the fourth paragraph just to tell you that this article hit the nail. Really interesting article so far. Thank you so much!
chrisweekly 8y ago
Wow. Read the whole (lengthy) essay and added it to evernote. Inspiring stuff. Thanks for sharing!
id_rsa 8y ago
Thanks for sharing. I agree with his advice about keeping the flashcards short. It is easy to get into a flow while answering the cards, but when one of them is too long, it disrupts the flow. Try breaking down larger cards into smaller bits of information.

Kagerjay 8y ago

The problem I have with using anki for 2+ years is I get too lazy to make cards. It feels like tedious data entry work, I'm wandering if I'm the only one that feels this way? I have to run anki, open the add item panel, figure out how to format the card / phrase the question, pick a deck, pick a card type, move the mouse over click tag, enter tag, write it down, press enter, minimize the application. I would to do this several times throughout the day since I learn things inconsistently. My productivity tanks when I use anki. Because I also have many other tools for jotting notes, emails, slack, blog, etc. I already tried practically all the anki plugins out there too This is mostly for computer science / programming. If I used anki for learning a language, I would just mass create all my cards at one time or use a curated deck.

ivanhoe 8y ago
In my experience creating cards (or writing down the words into a notebook) is an essential part of the process. I'm not sure about the exact mechanics of it, but for me writing a word implants it in my memory much deeper than just reading it.
- Kagerjay 8y ago
  I totally get that too, I write/draw things down and find it helps remembering things easier. Especially math. But I find the time it takes to transfer that thought onto anki is so painstakingly slow. Anki doesn't even have a dedicated shortcut key for minimizing / maximizing the add card panel either, at least for windows. don't get me wrong here I love using anki and ankidroid but adding cards is a PITA. I add cards only on desktop anki because neither ankidroid nor ankiwebapp support easy-image formatting. But I do add cards from ankidroid if its a picture of some handwritten / whiteboard drawings I've made.
  - kungtotte 8y ago
    I've been sort of meta-learning for the past couple of weeks, reading about study methods and note taking and memory techniques, etc. and one prevailing theme regardless of the method is that repetition and rephrasing are key to internalise the information. E.g. you learn and retain the information far more efficiently if you take the route of read -> write note -> create flashcards from the note. As opposed to autogenerating the flashcards from the source material, for example. The process of formulating the note first and then formulating the flashcards means you have to actually think about the material in two stages instead of just performing data entry. In my experience it doesn't take all that much time, and if you're really interested in learning a topic is it unreasonable to expect that you have to spend say 10% longer with any given book or article to perform this review process? If you spend a bit of time up front creating a structured approach and stick to it, it'll become very quick. Here's an interesting article as a reference: https://robertheaton.com/2018/06/25/how-to-read/ https://robertheaton.com/2018/06/25/how-to-read/