On the topic of the effort being a memory concern and related to the spaced repitition comment in the article, I've found the app Anki to be great for learning

On the topic of the effort being a memory concern and related to the spaced repitition comment in the article, I've found the app Anki to be great for learning a new programming language. There are pre made flashcard decks for many languages at the community ankiweb.net site or if you're good at scraping you can create your own from the docs pretty easily.