Re: Using unmaintained plugins

[Bithov Vinu]

An addendum: a quick scan of org-drill reveals that all it uses (from org
at least) is the functionality to search for headers with a certain tag
(:drill: in its case) and some other core functionality (it doesn't use any
hot-out-of-the-oven org features) so I think I can rest assured that unless
there's a major refactoring of all of org, I need to worry.

On Mon, 19 Apr 2021, 09:12 Bithov Vinu, <bithov.vinub@gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks for your input. I think I'll keep using org-drill (and hopefully
> learn emacs lisp over the years) rather than moving to another spaced
> repetition application. Since I collected Paul Sexton's org-drill and
> org-learn.el, there have only been trivial changes, which I have been able
> to fix (for example, org-drill depends on *cl*, which I was informed by
> Emacs was deprecated, so I used cl-libify
> <https://github.com/purcell/cl-libify> to convert the org-drill.el source
> to not use *cl*). I can at least hope that changes to Emacs/Org-mode
> don't cripple it any more than I know how to fix. Having said that, I'll be
> sure to use it with caution and learn Emacs Lisp and org-mode programming.
> On that note, does anyone have any resources for learning org-mode
> programming? Emacs Lisp guides are abundant, but I'm not sure how to
> learn org-mode programming.
>
> The ongoing discussion about the spacing effect and memory seem
> interesting. I'm leaning towards Mr Borkowski's view; I've been reading
> memory science and around the forgetting curve in general as a hobby for a
> good few years and his arguments seem fairly sound. I partly understand
> Jean Louis' point, but a lot of the points made about mnemotechniques have
> been addressed by Dr Piotr Wozniak (see here
> <https://www.supermemo.com/en/archives1990-2015/english/company/wozniak> for
> credentials) pretty extensively here
> <https://www.supermemo.com/en/archives1990-2015/articles/myths>.
>
> The point that mnemotechniques can be used solely as a panacea for memory
> is directly debunked in that article; many of the courses that claim to
> give the audience "infinite memory" and are self-described "mentalists" are
> often snake-oil salesman and shills. Jean's point that you ought not to use
> spaced repetition, because it relies on rote memorization rather than
> understanding, isn't sound in that:
> a) no-one versed in the field of spaced repetition and the forgetting
> curve is advocating substituting understanding for rote memorization
> through spaced repetition
> b) in fact, Piotr Wozniak (the first researcher to implement a spaced
> repetition algorithm on a computer) argues that formulation of knowledge is
> hugely important in using spaced repetition, as summarised here
> <https://www.supermemo.com/en/archives1990-2015/articles/20rules>. The
> first rule of "formulating knowledge" is "do not learn (ie. memorise using
> spaced repetition) what you do not understand (ie. what you haven't learned
> in the traditional sense of the word)".
>
> I could debunk each point that Jean made, but the field of spaced
> repetition is incredibly well documented (mostly by Piotr Wozniak, see his
> sites here <https://www.supermemo.com/en/blog> and here
> <https://www.supermemo.guru>) so going through each point would be a
> waste of time. I would highly recommend that you read SupermemoGuru in
> particular, that site is rich in its writing.
>
> More generally, the forgetting curve is found everywhere in nature, and
> attempting to circumvent it using mnemonics is completely futile
> <https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Mnemonic_anchor>. In fact, the rate of
> forgetting is explained by Zipf's Law
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zipf's_law>, which is fantastically
> explained in a video by Vsauce
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCn8zs912OE>. *All *memory is subject to
> the forgetting curve, perhaps forgetting can be delayed through the use of
> mnemonics, but ultimately, permastore is a myth
> <https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Permastore>.
>
> I've linked a lot to Piotr Wozniak's writings, so I'd advise that anyone
> reading it check out the references page
> <https://supermemo.guru/wiki/References> so that they can verify his
> claims, and to ensure that Piotr Wozniak
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piotr_Wo%C5%BAniak_(researcher)> is
> actually a legitimate researcher.
>
> There have been some dubious claims made by Piotr, but, all in all,
> supermemo.guru seems to be a legitimate site. Org-drill uses SM-2 and SM-5
> officially and an experimental SM-8 algorithm, SM in this case standing for
> Supermemo (the product in which Piotr implemented his spaced repetition
> algorithms). SM-0 was the first one, SM-2 and SM-5 succeeded it. Up to
> SM-5, the algorithm was peer reviewed (you can find them and his other
> research papers here <https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Piotr-Wozniak>)
> but after this, the newer algorithms were not published and instead the
> algorithms (the latest is SM-18) became a trade secret. You can read about
> the history of the supermemo algorithm here
> <https://supermemo.guru/wiki/History_of_SuperMemo_algorithm>.
>
> There's a fantastic article by Wired that explains in great detail the
> spacing effect, I'd advise you all read it. It's linked here
> <https://www.wired.com/2008/04/ff-wozniak/>.
>
>
>