| ▲ | tpoacher 2 days ago |
| I don't mind people comparing such projects against Anki, this is natural since Anki is quite dominant in this space, but I feel like every criticism of Anki on that list was either highly subjective, exaggerated, unfair, or outright wrong and unkind (in a "one does not climb a ladder by throwing others off it" manner). Not saying this is what Fernando intended to do here, but his sharp opinion does come across a bit like it here. Personally, I find the interface is extremely functional; the ability to have deck hierarchies to be a massive feature, not a bug; the WYSIWYG being the default being obvious given the intended audience, but one can still easily edit a textfile and import it or edit in html mode directly if desired; converting something into latex math is as simple as enclosing it in "[$] ... [/$]" and hardly the nightmare it's portrayed as; and finally potentially hacky plugins is a feature, not a bug: occasionally you have a very specific problem and some kind soul creates a solution for you, which may be functional but not the most aesthetically pleasing. That's fine. Anki is a bazaar, not a cathedral, and plugins have ratings and reviews which you can consult if necessary. I have tried many different flashcard solutions, including hacky text-based ones, and I always return to Anki. Despite the fact that most other tools in my stack that I swear by are terminal-based. |
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| ▲ | btilly 2 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| His list is a list of reasons why he was motivated to do something. It does not matter how subjective the list is, since its purpose is not to convince others. It just matters that it connects with him. If you're potentially interested in his project, you should evaluate your interest based on how much you think like him. If his complaints aren't yours, no skin off your back. Just ignore him. If they are, read farther. |
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| ▲ | tpoacher a day ago | parent [-] | | Yes, like I said, I didn't think denigrating Anki was specifically Fernando's purpose here. However the reason I find it off-putting is because, as someone who generally lives in the terminal, and Anki is one of the few remaining GUI apps I rely on, I actually "would" have preferred a decent terminal alternative with similar features. But introducing the alternative by saying how much Anki sucks immediately puts me off when all that criticism doesn't resonate with me. It literally works as anti-promotion here: if Hashcards promotes itself as missing all those features of Anki which I think are great, and my time is limited, then I have much less of an incentive to invest the time to check it out. Which is ironic, because in reality it may be great (like most of his other work) and actually suit my use-case really well. |
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| ▲ | anal_reactor 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Using Anki every day for about half an hour (I'm a slow learner lol). Anki sucks, but it's good enough that there's no point looking for other apps. |
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| ▲ | earnesti 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Sucks compared to what? I find anki super. It is amazing what other have built for me to use, for free. It is insane value. | | |
| ▲ | outside1234 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Anki IS amazing and DOES suck at the same time. I am very glad it exists and this is not meant as a dig at the maintainer for whom I am very grateful. In particular, the UX is a mess. It is very hard for a beginner and frankly it feels like you are in an escape room whenever you want to do something new in terms of difficulty. Once you are over that hump and just internalize its warts, it is AMAZING, but it IS a huge hurdle for a lot of people. | | | |
| ▲ | boxed 18 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The default on iOS is pretty bad for example. Hidden hitpoints all over the card is obviously bad. And like the article states: no way to just go through all cards regardless of deck is kinda silly and annoying for no reason. |
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| ▲ | fny 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I know a gazillion med students who used Anki as is to graduate. They routinely have decks with north of 10K cards. The people who hunt for alternatives are probably procrastinating, and the people who write their own apps are definitely yak shaving. | |
| ▲ | GaggiX a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Anki is amazing, "anal_reactor" I think you're wrong on this. Also "half an hour" != "slow learner", everything depends on the quantity, the difficulty and the chosen desired retention. |
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