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I enjoy using Anki and have found it effective in the very rare instances where I need to rapidly memorize a lot of material. But as a developer, I've never fo

I enjoy using Anki and have found it effective in the very rare instances where I need to rapidly memorize a lot of material. But as a developer, I've never found a need for memorization. Am I missing out? Do any developers have suggestions for how to utilize Anki to make myself more professionally efficient? I suppose one starting point might be to track my most googled phrases ("trim newlines in sed," "bash printf into a variable," etc.) and turn those into cards.

nyadesu 4y ago
I think it's meant for memorization, so ideal for language learning and raw knowledge absorption (like in academic courses)
tmtvl 4y ago
When it comes to programming I consider SRS useful for things like the tradeoffs and characteristics of various data structures, modelling techniques, and algorithms. Things like code snippets (including shell invocations) I prefer to simply keep in a personal library because those don't require as much innate knowledge. Compare: Oh, I have to remove this user from all the services this machine provides? I've got a script for that. To: We need to sort all the users by how much they've spent in purchases? A heap sort has a fairly decent worst case but doesn't parallelize all that well and if the users are already mostly sorted it doesn't get much advantage, maybe merge sort would be better...
lowken 4y ago
I use Anki every day and it helps in the following ways... 1. It's rare that I have to use Google figure out how to do basic tasks in my Programming Languages of choice (C#, & TSQL). Don't get me wrong I, and everyone on the planet, looks up code on the internet. It's just a more rare scenario for me. 2. I write much quicker then your average developer. Of course most of software development is design and requirements gathering/clarification but when I do get down to writing code I'm very fast. 3. I spot bugs almost immediately because when I go through my Anki deck I get repeated exposure do different error scenarios. In fact I can often simply think about the scenario and it will occur to me where the bug is and what is going on. I attribute this to using Anki on a daily basis. 4. I can read code much better then before I started using Anki. I know at a glance what code is part of the language/framework vs what is custom code for the application.
- Cazafr 4y ago
  Could you share how you structure your cards for this ? I've been using Anki for a few months and I've yet to find a way to cover CS topics appropriately.
- gcmeplz 4y ago
  Could you link to some examples of your cards? Your usage sounds cool, but I have a hard time picturing what cards I'd actually want to make.
chipuni 4y ago
I use Anki every day. I throw in everything that I've learned during a day, broken into tiny pieces. All the specific terminology that a new technology uses and the exact keywords that it uses goes in. Any time that I need to look up something and I'm convinced I will need it again goes in. All of the company-specific tools go in.

nyadesu 4y ago

I think it's meant for memorization, so ideal for language learning and raw knowledge absorption (like in academic courses)

tmtvl 4y ago

When it comes to programming I consider SRS useful for things like the tradeoffs and characteristics of various data structures, modelling techniques, and algorithms. Things like code snippets (including shell invocations) I prefer to simply keep in a personal library because those don't require as much innate knowledge. Compare: Oh, I have to remove this user from all the services this machine provides? I've got a script for that. To: We need to sort all the users by how much they've spent in purchases? A heap sort has a fairly decent worst case but doesn't parallelize all that well and if the users are already mostly sorted it doesn't get much advantage, maybe merge sort would be better...

lowken 4y ago

I use Anki every day and it helps in the following ways... 1. It's rare that I have to use Google figure out how to do basic tasks in my Programming Languages of choice (C#, & TSQL). Don't get me wrong I, and everyone on the planet, looks up code on the internet. It's just a more rare scenario for me. 2. I write much quicker then your average developer. Of course most of software development is design and requirements gathering/clarification but when I do get down to writing code I'm very fast. 3. I spot bugs almost immediately because when I go through my Anki deck I get repeated exposure do different error scenarios. In fact I can often simply think about the scenario and it will occur to me where the bug is and what is going on. I attribute this to using Anki on a daily basis. 4. I can read code much better then before I started using Anki. I know at a glance what code is part of the language/framework vs what is custom code for the application.

Cazafr 4y ago
Could you share how you structure your cards for this ? I've been using Anki for a few months and I've yet to find a way to cover CS topics appropriately.
gcmeplz 4y ago
Could you link to some examples of your cards? Your usage sounds cool, but I have a hard time picturing what cards I'd actually want to make.

chipuni 4y ago

I use Anki every day. I throw in everything that I've learned during a day, broken into tiny pieces. All the specific terminology that a new technology uses and the exact keywords that it uses goes in. Any time that I need to look up something and I'm convinced I will need it again goes in. All of the company-specific tools go in.