Post

new blog post incoming

So I have a slight objection to the phrasing here: I've seen the "I'm using AI the right way!" learners think that simply typing out and memorizing what the AI output is equivalent to this. There is a growing cohort of folks who never learned how to learn, only how to memorize.

So when you say "type it out from memory," in good faith I assume you mean translating examples and trying to produce code using your memory of concepts, syntax, and mechanics. If you mean what the person in the screenshot is up to I have a stronger objection.

Yeah, I mean generating new things from scratch (that's my understanding of what the literature means by the "generation effect") There is a related effect for the other thing you mentioned which is the "production effect" (basically transcribing an example)

Interestingly, research shows that the production effect also improves comprehension, albeit not as much as the generation effect (unsurprisingly) So it's not as good to just mindlessly memorize and/or transcribe an example, but it's still better than just passively reading

Or passively watching: it's an issue with those "learn how to code in 12 hours" videos. Nowhere near enough reinforcement. It sounds like you have a better understanding than I do of the research though.