📁 Question 1: What does your study deck look like?
Please add a sample of your Anki deck below.
This will help me see how people are actually using the themes.
💬 Question 2: How are you using Anki?
Head to the discussion board to share your ideas ...
How are you using Anki Themes?
77
How are you not using Anki Themes?
76
It's handy to know how people actually use Anki themes with the app (or if they're even using it at all). Personally, I've not used it in about 3 years, as I've been away in China teaching Art & Design. Top tip: be careful if you're leaving your deck data on Anki Web as after 6 months they delete it 😔.
I also hit a brick wall coding; from learning to design basic programs to building anything of worth is a big leap, and I have no interest in being a DBA or doing heavy backend work[^1]. Alas, my brain isn't wired that way, so I struggle.[^2]
I've also been wondering how useful Anki is; how it's best used, and when to stop. Some interesting research below:
💡Question 3: Are you a visual learner, or do you prefer text?
How do you create your cards? Show me!
One of the main drags is card creation. I recently lost ALL my cards, carefully crafted over a couple of years and it's highly unlikely I'll recreate them. Building out a deck takes time, and I've been thinking quite a lot about how best to do this efficiently — how do we best map the language that makes up computer science? It's isn't easy, and each of us have our preferred learning styles.
Personally, I learn better visually, but some CompSci concepts are hard to visualise.
50 (visualising code examples and the language of programming)
One helpful method could be connecting a set of cards to a proper project (this example from HTDP):
I have a ton of whiteboard drawings somewhere for small programs — there's simply too much information in them to stuff in a bunch of Anki cards.
The more cards you create to learn, the longer it takes to review.
How much is too much? Cards should have minimal information on them.
One approach is to only add key learning points you find difficult (and skip the easier stuff); I imagine you'll passively remember the learning points you didn't add, simply through remembering the project.
Another helpful way is to scrap Anki cards altogether and write up some shorthand notes, like this example of Head First SQL book, or perhaps add a few Anki examples linked to this reference point.
🖥️ Question 4: Which programming language are you learning?
This is the hard part. Programming takes time[^3] and there's many tradeoffs for each language choice.
Which programming language do I a start with?[^4] (this matters)
[^1]: I've also tried to be a data scientist, business intelligence, python programmer, UX guy, ... all of which are fine to begin with but very quickly develop a steep learning curve. It's unlikely I'll do any of them professionally! Choosing a career is difficult, so better to learn quickly if it's the correct path for you: re-tooling can be tiring, so anything that helps that process along is extremely useful.
[^2]: Why learning to code is so damn hard
[^3]: An early mentor told me if you're not working 12 hours a day, you're going to struggle. He wasn't far wrong, but I'm hopeful that I don't have to stare into a screen for that long to build something of worth.
[^4]: To begin with, I'd choose something like Racket lang, Elm or Python. The first two because they're very well designed languages and introduce functional programming in a very thorough way. In my opinion, learning the fundamentals and concepts are far more important than this or that language. You'll also see how messy and complicated other languages are after being introduced to the good stuff!
📁 Question 1: What does your study deck look like?
💬 Question 2: How are you using Anki?
77
76
It's handy to know how people actually use Anki themes with the app (or if they're even using it at all). Personally, I've not used it in about 3 years, as I've been away in China teaching Art & Design. Top tip: be careful if you're leaving your deck data on Anki Web as after 6 months they delete it 😔.
I also hit a brick wall coding; from learning to design basic programs to building anything of worth is a big leap, and I have no interest in being a DBA or doing heavy backend work[^1]. Alas, my brain isn't wired that way, so I struggle.[^2]
I've also been wondering how useful Anki is; how it's best used, and when to stop. Some interesting research below:
💡Question 3: Are you a visual learner, or do you prefer text?
One of the main drags is card creation. I recently lost ALL my cards, carefully crafted over a couple of years and it's highly unlikely I'll recreate them. Building out a deck takes time, and I've been thinking quite a lot about how best to do this efficiently — how do we best map the language that makes up computer science? It's isn't easy, and each of us have our preferred learning styles.
50 (visualising code examples and the language of programming)
One helpful method could be connecting a set of cards to a proper project (this example from HTDP):
I have a ton of whiteboard drawings somewhere for small programs — there's simply too much information in them to stuff in a bunch of Anki cards.
One approach is to only add key learning points you find difficult (and skip the easier stuff); I imagine you'll passively remember the learning points you didn't add, simply through remembering the project.
Another helpful way is to scrap Anki cards altogether and write up some shorthand notes, like this example of Head First SQL book, or perhaps add a few Anki examples linked to this reference point.
🖥️ Question 4: Which programming language are you learning?
This is the hard part. Programming takes time[^3] and there's many tradeoffs for each language choice.
[^1]: I've also tried to be a data scientist, business intelligence, python programmer, UX guy, ... all of which are fine to begin with but very quickly develop a steep learning curve. It's unlikely I'll do any of them professionally! Choosing a career is difficult, so better to learn quickly if it's the correct path for you: re-tooling can be tiring, so anything that helps that process along is extremely useful. [^2]: Why learning to code is so damn hard [^3]: An early mentor told me if you're not working 12 hours a day, you're going to struggle. He wasn't far wrong, but I'm hopeful that I don't have to stare into a screen for that long to build something of worth. [^4]: To begin with, I'd choose something like Racket lang, Elm or Python. The first two because they're very well designed languages and introduce functional programming in a very thorough way. In my opinion, learning the fundamentals and concepts are far more important than this or that language. You'll also see how messy and complicated other languages are after being introduced to the good stuff!