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Ethan McCue
@mccue.dev

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.

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Ethan McCue
@mccue.dev

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.

gabby
@fullmoon.id

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)

gabby
@fullmoon.id

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

Ethan McCue
@mccue.dev

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.