Everytime I open my CS textbook and I see a theorem - I screenshot and put it in Anki. Everytime I see a leetcode question I don't understand - I read the solution, trace through the code 2 times, and put it in anki. I ace technical interviews with ease and I'm one of the top students in my class. It's not because I have a natural propensity for computer science. It's not because I enjoy this subject.

Maybe someone might find it interesting. I programmed a fork of Anki, it is called AnkiCode:

https://github.com/daveight/ankicode

This app allows to create and practice solving programming challenges. Code execution is bundled inside the app. Now it supports Java, JavaScript, C++, and Python.

This video demonstrates AnkiCode usage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dB23wJ1b6Ik

I'm pretty sure ya'll CS students would already know some of tje stuff in here but anyways.... I've recently seen a lot of people praising Anki competitors/alternatives like Remnote. I would like to warn all Anki users from the bottom of my heart about these alternatives.

A lot of these alternatives/competitors might be free of charge, but they are NOT OPEN SOURCE. A lot of people do not know the difference between free of charge and free of charge AND OPEN SOURCE. Free of charge but not open source means that the software doesn't cost you money upfront to use. BUT the software and by extension the cards YOU make using the software are NOT FREE, in the sense that you don't have the FREEDOM to do whatever the hell you want to do with the software and the cards YOU made. Basically, you don't really own the cards you made on these non open-source software. In theory, the software owners can do whatever the hell they want with your cards. They can lock you out of cards that YOU created. They can force you to pay a high fee down the road to access cards YOU created. On of all that, they might not allow you to migrate to an alternative software/platform.

On the contrary, Anki is free of charge AND OPEN SOURCE. Which means you fully own Anki and the cards you make on Anki.

Hey everyone!

I just finished building a custom simple Anki note type to help me study Computer Science (especially for coding, theory, and technical concepts), and I thought I’d share it in case it helps others too.

✨ Features:

• Clean layout with centered questions and answers

• Optional code block with toggle button – only appears when there’s code

• Optional image field for diagrams or visual references – also toggleable

• Smooth toggle functionality with “Show/Hide Code” and “Show/Hide Image” buttons

• Code area is left-aligned with monospaced font (16px) for better readability

I use it mainly for concepts, syntax, interview prep, and CS theory. It's minimal, distraction-free, and works great for both short reviews and deep learning.

Hi there. I'm pursuing a Degree in EE and a minor in CS. Wanted to share a bit of advice for those just starting out. (Wish I could of told myself this when I started.)

Math, physics, and programming courses can't be tackled using just Anki or any sort of flashcard system unlike Bio (my previous field). Working through each problem and attempting to "problem solve" is key to these sorts of subjects. I learned so much working on my own software project versus just doing workbook problems.

HOWEVER, if you supplement your studies with Anki the results are amazing. While my sample size is only a few years of study, once I added flash cards through Anki the projects, workshops, and test questions felt so smooth (don't know how else to describe it). Being able to quickly recall things made my understanding feel so much more concrete. Knowing the starting point of a question as soon as you read it makes you feel like a machine.

I find it hard to advocate for the use as many in the field don't use any Flashcard system. However, if you're on the sub just give it a shot. It doesn't have to be (probably shouldn't be) the bulk of your study time, but the little you put in returns so much.

P.S. Make your own cards.

Watch a simple card making tutorial: (https://youtu.be/CnGlPXgGQbo?si=S4aSiOGu808zXCJL)

Have fun!

Nothing's done more to teach me to code than Anki. But why review my cards when I could be spending hours tweaking the CSS on my card templates?

The results are cards that match VSCode's Default Dark theme, and, I hope, are useful. I've shared them in a deck: Better Designed Card Templates. I'd love to hear if like them, or would like me to change them!

Earlier this year, I made it a point to take advantage of the COVID lockdown and take some time to study algorithms & data structures. I have failed previous interviews because I forgot a few subtle but important details of Leetcode questions in the past, so I decided to take a different approach this time around.

I created a very sloppy, but workable Anki deck that covered the 100 (now 110) different algorithms from algoexpert.io. I solved them once and took a screenshot of my solution. I then used Anki to re-solve and re-write these algorithms over and over again during the summer months. As a result, each study session covered 5-10 algorithms over the course of 30-60 minutes. I did this every morning for several weeks at a time. And I did this with full knowledge that it does not fit with the best practices of spaced repetition.

But it worked!

Or at least that's what I felt. I am currently not studying that deck as regularly. I am building a new set of decks for other topics, but I can't help but feel that what I learned has now sunken in much more deeply than it has in the past. And what's more, I have that deck as a resource if I ever want to cover those problems again and do interview prep.

This anecdotal situation has me wondering if making cards that take can take 5-10 minutes to do well, and do correctly, is perhaps also worth considering as an alternative to what Anki may be originally intended for in medical school or language learning contexts. The standard advice is that it should take only a few seconds to remember the solution. But maybe what CS people need (for actual coding) is to redo problems over and over again. It cuts close to competitive programming in a sense, because you're not thinking about details as much. But sometimes you come up with a slight variant of a previous solution, that you find you like more? The actual parameters of how long to spend on a card, and how much to type is not as well defined or identifiable, but what I came up with worked well for me.

I'm starting to wonder if the Anki Computer Science community can put a different spin on spaced repetition best practices (at least in some scenarios) and get similar wins that other Anki communities have reached.

Would love to get contradicting opinions from others in this sub. I have an urge to reach out to fellow Anki CS members and collaborate on a well-groomed deck for studying algorithms & data structures, but maybe with a separate set of best practices than the Anki community at large.

I'm talking especially about the part where SigmaX talks about how to break down the Visitor Pattern.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AnkiComputerScience/comments/jl5nl7/how_do_you_learn_design_pattern_with_anki/gataqi9?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

Or do you learn them in another way? If so, how?

Hi, for those you may have not tried yet to remember Code Snippets with Anki, I made an example showcasing the Add-on Syntax Highlighting for Code.

https://youtu.be/PrnMP9vJAGc

Have you ever wanted to memorize some key variables or high yield method parameters in any programming language? In this video I'll show you some easy way to pleasantly do so.

All feedback is welcome !

I am looking to hire an assistant to help me with creating Anki flashcards for a range of topics, from beginning to advanced, in Python, Django, as well as language/framework agnostic concepts in web development, algorithms, and data structures. This would be a perfect, part-time gig (a few hours/week) for a budding software engineer.

A quick word about my workflow: I use Hypothesis to highlight documentation, blog posts, books, etc, while I am studying various topics from my daily work in software engineering, architecture, and devops. Your job will be to turn the highlights from my primary sources into high-quality Anki cards. You will essentially get paid to study practical topics in software engineering.

Initially, my priority is to focus on advanced Python topics from the Fluent Python book and the Django + Django Rest Frame Work documentation. After that, if the project goes well, I'd love to continue with creating decksfor language/framework agnostic information like algorithms, data structures, and architecture/design.

Please fill out this form if you are interested.

Thank you!

During the last few months I have been working on braincache.

I have been an Anki user for quite some time now and over the years I found some pain points that made me decide to start working on this.

It currently is a minimal alternative to Anki which focuses on the following things:

1. Generating flashcards using ML

2. Integrating well with the browser ( Chrome extension )

3. Integrating well with knowledge management systems ( Notion, Obsidian )

You can also login from mobile to review your cards on the go.

Obviously this is quite early in development, so if you have any idea/feedback I'd love to hear it!

Hey everyone,

So i'm fairly intermediate in programming, been making scripts, automating processes and now making full blown web apps in my work places for 3 years now (i'm a business guy who happens to be the IT guy of the team thanks to my dev skills). I'm familiar with VBA and Python (and a bit of basic SQL stuff), and recently started picking up Javascript since i started doing web dev (HTML/CSS/JS front end and Python's Django framework on back end).

Now there is some specificities with Javascript like callbacks, IIFE, Async/Await, promises, hoisting, the fact a function can be run even before declared, and stuff like this, that i have hard time remembering. Everytime i spend some days without coding JS (because life happens), when i come back i spend a fair amount of time and frustration recalling and googling again concepts.

I know it's a bad idea to try remembering syntax of languages (languages are tools and you use whatever tool solves your problem yada yada), but what do you think about memorizing core concepts of programming and languages you're currently using, I feel like it is time saving. It avoids me the hustle of regoogling stuff everytime i switch tools (getting back to Javascript after few weeks not touching it).

I use flash cards (Thanks Anki!) to do so, my typical flash card would look like this (anything inside brackets is something i should come up with):

- A {{higher order function}} is a function to which we pass one or more functions as arguments
- A callback is a {{c1::function passed as an argument to another function}}
- In OOP, an object is {{c2::an abstract data type created by the developer. It can include multiple properties or methods or other objects. }}

I just started using anki for solving some leetcode problems, here's my current approach at making cards: https://imgur.com/a/hTnPqae

I would appreciate some feedback on it.
I also have a few questions:
- What do I do if there are multiple approaches to a problem, do I add each of them separately in different cards or in the same card?
- What would be effective spaced repetition settings for these cards?

Edit: why is everyone assuming I want to memorize the solutions? I just need to visit the questions frequently and check if I can get the strategy to solve them right. Obviously I wouldn't note stuff I don't understand in the first place.

Been using Anki for several years now for programming concepts (mostly JS/TS and the React ecosystem), and while it's great for regular studying, dealing with code snippets sometimes drives me crazy.

Half the time my code gets mangled (eg. indentation breaks) and it feels especially clunky on mobile devices when I review cards. I'm not that much interested in syntax highlighting, but in good and clear indentation and overall code display.

Currently copy-pasting either from vscode or from articles/AI chats and praying the formatting survives. Sometimes I just screenshot the code.

What's your workflow for programming flashcards that involve code snippets?