“are there examples of people becoming very successful due to Anki?”
It’s hard to answer that kind of question, because there are plenty of examples of people becoming successful without SRS, and people who use SRS don’t only use SRS.
Personally, I use Anki for professional development (so not to pass exams, but for long-term mastery). My biggest topics are math, algorithms (ex. machine learning research topics), and programming.
It’s got a number of advantages. Sometimes it helps by keeping technical details (like trig identities or programming syntax) close to the surface, so I can finish a project faster or plow through whiteboarding a problem with a colleague. Other times it helps by cementing a deep conceptual intuition strongly, so that I can focus on doing more advanced things (instead of rehashing the same slippery basics). Or by just increasing the breadth of what I know is available, so I don’t have to agonize over the right Google terms. Sometimes it helps by making it easier to remember people’s names, accelerating my ability to network (I recommend mnemonics here, since names are rote memorization, and rote memorization is difficult with Anki).
But above all, it ensures that I can keep learning, even if I only have 20 minutes a day to spare for deep/slippery topics like quantum computing; or 10 minutes a day to capture a fleeing professional experience that would otherwise be in one ear/out the other. I’m just 32 years old, but that’s old enough that I’ve forgotten much more than I’ve learned. Anki changes that: it acts like compound interest for knowledge. This spring (after a few years of regular SRS use) I’ll reach 40,000 cards, with no sign of slowing down.
It’s hard to reproduce that kind of growth with traditional learning methods.
Hm, I seem to have different experiences than you have had.
Sometimes it helps by keeping technical details (like trig identities or programming syntax) close to the surface, so I can finish a project faster or plow through whiteboarding a problem with a colleague.
My experience as a programmer (from myself and from talking to others) is that you pick up syntax pretty quickly. For a new language there’s a learning curve. Perhaps SRS would help with that, although that doesn’t seem too useful. Eg. I use JavaScript every day and rarely use Python. I could use SRS for Python. Alternatively, I could wait until I need to use Python, take a few days getting familiar with the syntax, and then be fine, which seems better.
Other times it helps by cementing a deep conceptual intuition strongly
Perhaps my memory is failing me, but I can’t recall doing SRS over and over again ever cementing a deep conceptual intuition for me. I think looking at the same thing from different angles is often helpful, but with SRS, a given card is largely looking at the concept from one angle.
Here’s an example. I’m learning functional programming right now. In functional programming, operators like + and * are just functions. Instead of 2 + 3 you can do (+) 2 3 just like you’d do add 2 3. Similarly, you could call functions using infix notations by using backticks like this 2 `add` 3 and it behaves like an operator. This really cemented for me what an operator is in such a way that I don’t think SRS ever could, and it did so much faster.
But above all, it ensures that I can keep learning, even if I only have 20 minutes a day to spare for deep/slippery topics like quantum computing; or 10 minutes a day to capture a fleeing professional experience that would otherwise be in one ear/out the other… It’s hard to reproduce that kind of growth with traditional learning methods.
It sounds like your point is moreso that it’s hard to be as productive without SRS, but I’d like to note that there are other ways you can use a spare 15 minutes to learn rather than SRS.
There’s definitely a tradeoff between breadth and depth/speed. On a real-world project, you can attain great speed and/or great depth on the narrow set of techniques/concepts that are directly relevant to the work you do every day.
It’s very expensive to maintain that kind of fluency. I’ve never done any programming in a language that uses infix vs. prefix operators, yet I know the difference just from a couple minutes total studying the concept at a few different widely-spaced points in time. This concept would not pose a challenge to me were I to pick up a functional programming language, although it would take time to build a habit of using them.
When you overinvest in study-through-practice in a concept you’ve already mastered, you will forget a lot of the more broad knowledge. Anki gives you a way to retain it, or to get it back when you’re ready for it. If you see yourself as having no need for a broad knowledge-base—if you see your career as being a happy code monkey banging out programs that are within the wheelhouse you’ve already established, then you’re probably good.
But if you have a different vision for your career, it’s possible that broad knowledge will be really helpful. And spaced repetition/Anki gives you a set of tools to build and maintain that broad knowledge-base.
I’m really glad you posted this objection to Anki, because I think it’s probably common. It’s also a fair point: sometimes, we don’t care about building a broad knowledge base. We’re just trying to become fluent in the narrow set of skills that let us execute a technical project. Clarifying that distinction is very valuable from the perspective of budgeting your study time wisely.
“are there examples of people becoming very successful due to Anki?”
It’s hard to answer that kind of question, because there are plenty of examples of people becoming successful without SRS, and people who use SRS don’t only use SRS.
Personally, I use Anki for professional development (so not to pass exams, but for long-term mastery). My biggest topics are math, algorithms (ex. machine learning research topics), and programming.
It’s got a number of advantages. Sometimes it helps by keeping technical details (like trig identities or programming syntax) close to the surface, so I can finish a project faster or plow through whiteboarding a problem with a colleague. Other times it helps by cementing a deep conceptual intuition strongly, so that I can focus on doing more advanced things (instead of rehashing the same slippery basics). Or by just increasing the breadth of what I know is available, so I don’t have to agonize over the right Google terms. Sometimes it helps by making it easier to remember people’s names, accelerating my ability to network (I recommend mnemonics here, since names are rote memorization, and rote memorization is difficult with Anki).
But above all, it ensures that I can keep learning, even if I only have 20 minutes a day to spare for deep/slippery topics like quantum computing; or 10 minutes a day to capture a fleeing professional experience that would otherwise be in one ear/out the other. I’m just 32 years old, but that’s old enough that I’ve forgotten much more than I’ve learned. Anki changes that: it acts like compound interest for knowledge. This spring (after a few years of regular SRS use) I’ll reach 40,000 cards, with no sign of slowing down.
It’s hard to reproduce that kind of growth with traditional learning methods.
Hm, I seem to have different experiences than you have had.
My experience as a programmer (from myself and from talking to others) is that you pick up syntax pretty quickly. For a new language there’s a learning curve. Perhaps SRS would help with that, although that doesn’t seem too useful. Eg. I use JavaScript every day and rarely use Python. I could use SRS for Python. Alternatively, I could wait until I need to use Python, take a few days getting familiar with the syntax, and then be fine, which seems better.
Perhaps my memory is failing me, but I can’t recall doing SRS over and over again ever cementing a deep conceptual intuition for me. I think looking at the same thing from different angles is often helpful, but with SRS, a given card is largely looking at the concept from one angle.
Here’s an example. I’m learning functional programming right now. In functional programming, operators like
+and*are just functions. Instead of2 + 3you can do(+) 2 3just like you’d doadd 2 3. Similarly, you could call functions using infix notations by using backticks like this2 `add` 3and it behaves like an operator. This really cemented for me what an operator is in such a way that I don’t think SRS ever could, and it did so much faster.It sounds like your point is moreso that it’s hard to be as productive without SRS, but I’d like to note that there are other ways you can use a spare 15 minutes to learn rather than SRS.
There’s definitely a tradeoff between breadth and depth/speed. On a real-world project, you can attain great speed and/or great depth on the narrow set of techniques/concepts that are directly relevant to the work you do every day.
It’s very expensive to maintain that kind of fluency. I’ve never done any programming in a language that uses infix vs. prefix operators, yet I know the difference just from a couple minutes total studying the concept at a few different widely-spaced points in time. This concept would not pose a challenge to me were I to pick up a functional programming language, although it would take time to build a habit of using them.
When you overinvest in study-through-practice in a concept you’ve already mastered, you will forget a lot of the more broad knowledge. Anki gives you a way to retain it, or to get it back when you’re ready for it. If you see yourself as having no need for a broad knowledge-base—if you see your career as being a happy code monkey banging out programs that are within the wheelhouse you’ve already established, then you’re probably good.
But if you have a different vision for your career, it’s possible that broad knowledge will be really helpful. And spaced repetition/Anki gives you a set of tools to build and maintain that broad knowledge-base.
I’m really glad you posted this objection to Anki, because I think it’s probably common. It’s also a fair point: sometimes, we don’t care about building a broad knowledge base. We’re just trying to become fluent in the narrow set of skills that let us execute a technical project. Clarifying that distinction is very valuable from the perspective of budgeting your study time wisely.