[marcelluspye]

I went into this article thinking I would hate it, but as I read it over, each point that came up in my mind ("obviously there's a difference between passive and active learning," "spaced repetition would make a big difference," etc.) was addressed soon after (a sign of a well-organized article).

OTOH, I think the criticisms in the comments here, are strange (even ignoring comments whose criticisms are dismissed by actually reading the article). So much of the evolution of UI design is moving from 'the user can do all these things,' to 'it is easy for the user to do these things' and 'the user interfaces with the product in the way that we want.' When a reader picks up a book without a vested interest in understanding its contents, they will read it once, cover to cover, rather quickly, without taking many notes, and will then proceed to forget most of what they read (not only the details, but even the concepts). Perhaps it'd be a good idea for authors of popular non-fiction books (i.e., will be read by many such people) to 'trick' readers into learning by augmenting the text with proven learning techniques, which work when the book is picked up and read with the above technique.

[trendoid]

yup, super bizarre comments here. I thought the work of Bret Victor was liked in HN community and this is along the same lines. Very well written article that hits on all important points.