[pessimizer]

You keep using the phrase "forced study" as a substitute for spaced repetition.

Nobody is forcing me to do spaced repetition, I enjoy it. It helps me remember things, and I get a dopamine hit when I remember stuff correctly. So instead of talking about "forced study," let us talk about spaced repetition.

[revskill]

Yes, the point is, it forced you to remember things which i should forget instead. It's dangerous though. In real life, we should learn how to forget unnessesary stuffs ? Or, i think a better strategy is, it should remind me of something "new" that i'm not aware of instead. Remembering is two-sword knife.

[pessimizer]

I think the point when you're learning programming or another language is to remember things long enough that you can recall them when you need to use them. Once you've got in the habit of using them, the cards don't matter anymore.

For example, to remember "almohada" in Spanish means pillow, I just think of a pillow shaped like the Alamo, and Tinkerbell, the fairy from Peter Pan, sitting in one of the windows ("hada" means fairy is Spanish.) I only need to remember this until I've talked or read enough about pillows in Spanish that I don't need the memory device. And as an example of that, "hada" is a word I don't need anything to remember, I just know it now. I don't remember why. I may have come up with some mental image, I may have had a flashcard, I may just remember the movie Veneno para las hadas because I like it.

It doesn't matter anymore, because it's now knowledge that I have.