4 ms·

I think the "beginner mistake" is that you can download a pre-made deck of 1000 German words, many of which you have never heard before, so it will be very hard

by rolisz 5y ago

I think the "beginner mistake" is that you can download a pre-made deck of 1000 German words, many of which you have never heard before, so it will be very hard to make them stick in your memory. With Orbit, I think the idea is that the prompts are very well crafted (Andy has some research on making good prompts) and also that you are encountering the questions right in the context where you are learning about them, so you have something to attach them to. I think this is a complementary thing for implementing B-trees or solving exercises. That is needed as well, but will you still remember the finer details of splitting nodes in a B-Tree a month later? Or six months later? Which might or might not be necessary.

judofyr 5y ago
> I think this is a complementary thing for implementing B-trees or solving exercises. That is needed as well, but will you still remember the finer details of splitting nodes in a B-Tree a month later? Or six months later? Which might or might not be necessary. This is a very good point. This is the type of knowledge which I don't care about retaining. I'm pretty confident that I can re-learn it in a few days when I need it later. It's also not critical to have this knowledge at the top of my head as I'm rarely going to be in a situation where I need to recall this immediately. This is quite different from vocabulary where it is critical that you can find (or understand) the word in seconds otherwise you'll fail at communicating.
hobofan 5y ago
Fully agreed! I think the existing options for pre-made decks often resemble your "1000 German words" example, and the space of providing good pre-made decks is explored far too little and dismissed too quickly in the Anki community. I can see something like Orbit very likely existing in the set of my future learning tools. Most texts that I read (doesn't matter with how much concentration), flow right through me and nothing sticks. The only way to make them stick is by exercising with spaced repetition flashcards, but creating them often takes so much time that I only bother to do it for the most important subjects. A possible future evolution of the concept where cards unlocked on two independent websites can unlock further cards like "how does concept A (from website A) relate to concept B (from website B)" would be amazing, and seems very much in the realm of possiblity.

by rolisz 5y ago

judofyr 5y ago

> I think this is a complementary thing for implementing B-trees or solving exercises. That is needed as well, but will you still remember the finer details of splitting nodes in a B-Tree a month later? Or six months later? Which might or might not be necessary. This is a very good point. This is the type of knowledge which I don't care about retaining. I'm pretty confident that I can re-learn it in a few days when I need it later. It's also not critical to have this knowledge at the top of my head as I'm rarely going to be in a situation where I need to recall this immediately. This is quite different from vocabulary where it is critical that you can find (or understand) the word in seconds otherwise you'll fail at communicating.

hobofan 5y ago

Fully agreed! I think the existing options for pre-made decks often resemble your "1000 German words" example, and the space of providing good pre-made decks is explored far too little and dismissed too quickly in the Anki community. I can see something like Orbit very likely existing in the set of my future learning tools. Most texts that I read (doesn't matter with how much concentration), flow right through me and nothing sticks. The only way to make them stick is by exercising with spaced repetition flashcards, but creating them often takes so much time that I only bother to do it for the most important subjects. A possible future evolution of the concept where cards unlocked on two independent websites can unlock further cards like "how does concept A (from website A) relate to concept B (from website B)" would be amazing, and seems very much in the realm of possiblity.