Memory is a funny thing. It's not anything like replaying a video again, where you see exactly the same thing every time. It's a process of reconstruction based

Memory is a funny thing. It's not anything like replaying a video again, where you see exactly the same thing every time. It's a process of reconstruction based on a much smaller set of data than a video. Improving your memory definitely will help you as a programmer. For example, improving your short-term memory will allow you to write better code on a day-to-day basis because you'll be able to hold those complex details in your head all day, while a better long-term memory allows you to recall your past successes and reuse code from them. Your memory will work best when it is reconstructing the events of a story, which is why mnemonic devices are so often constructed as a story (even if it's a nonsense story). You should try to memorize the process by which you developed a program rather than the exact lines of code that you wrote. This will enable you to essentially rewrite those lines of code as you need them, by following the same process over again. At this level it's more like procedural graphics than a video recording. I think there's a video of Feynman stating this for math and physics. He says that you never memorize every single formula or physical fact; instead you triangulate them from each other. If you need fact A but can't recall it, then you use facts B and C that you do recall to point you in the right direction (which might be a proof, or a sketch of a proof, or key words for a google search, or whatever).