[munmaek]

I have been using anki for almost ~3 years now to study Korean vocabulary, sentences, and Japanese kanji. I'm also a software engineer for my day job. I've also written about anki. [0]

I don't see the value in memorizing programming -syntax-. It's irrelevant to me to remember how to open a file in ruby or do a specific command- that's what search engines and then my personal wiki is for.

If I worked -only- in ruby, then I'd likely remember those specifics much more, but since I hop around with rust, python, c#, clojure ... depending on our clients, there's no way I'm going to remember stuff like that for every language. Especially since languages tend to get updates and changes!

I would use anki to retain knowledge of stuff like more complicated data structures. Right now, I just search for what I need, then toss it into my personal wiki folders. I can then use notational-fzf-vim to rapidly fuzzy search my markdown files. [0] I keep these synced across computers with a selfhosted nextcloud instance.

[0]: https://andrewzah.com/tags/anki

[1]: https://github.com/alok/notational-fzf-vim

[mailjenil]

I defer. I value remembering syntax of programing language. Not all syntaxes, but your commonly used ones.

I have been remembering Python syntax through Anki. Recently, I needed to write some adhoc scripts for backfill. I felt so productive without looking at any references. It took me 3x less time to complete my task compared to always looking at references.

[criddell]

> It took me 3x less time to complete my task compared to always looking at references

What happens if you include the time you spent drilling yourself with Anki? Are you still ahead?

[kiba]

If I worked -only- in ruby, then I'd likely remember those specifics much more, but since I hop around with rust, python, c#, clojure ... depending on our clients, there's no way I'm going to remember stuff like that for every language. Especially since languages tend to get updates and changes!

They change that often?

I memorized the programming syntax so that hopefully next time I opened up a language I haven't seen in years, I don't have to stumble around trying to catch my footing.

I also found that I have terminologies issue which may make communication difficult, so it's a good idea to have labels for structures in your program.

[munmaek]

> They change that often?

Typically not very much, but it -can- happen. I don't see the need to have stuff like that memorized when I can just check my wiki, or search online if that fails. Or I can even just look at one of my past codebases really quick with fuzzy searching or grep.

For any domain that I'm working in, it's typically unnecessary anyways. I do a lot of work in Rust right now so I have most things like that off the top of my head, etc.

[kiba]

For any domain that I'm working in, it's typically unnecessary anyways. I do a lot of work in Rust right now so I have most things like that off the top of my head, etc.

I also use the "wiki"(mine is just a series of atomized plain text notes) to learn stuff and look up. When that failed, I used google.

I just think that memorizing syntax is potentially valuable in switching context.

[tigershark]

Pretty much exactly what I was going to write except for the languages mixture that for me is a bit different and probably more fast jumping. Thanks :)

[hn17]

Thanks for sharing.