Hello 👋 ,
I am Sharekh, a software engineer. I started this newsletter because you don’t have time to read a 600+ page books which keeps talking theory. Even if you did read, you don’t have time to read it again. If you did read it again, you don’t have time to read it again and again 😪. You got my point? Let me explain.
I am not going to boor you with why reading is important and stuff, everyone knows that. I am going to tell you why re-reading is necessary.
🤖 Reading is sowing. Re-reading is harvesting.
We tend to forget things quickly even when we have understood the concepts. Look at the Ebbinghau’s Forgetting Curve above. Yup! By next day you would just retain ~30% of what you read today 🤯. When trying to recall something next day, brain be like…
So what’s the solution? I started researching ways to remember things and stumbled upon a technique called Spaced-Repetition. And it works. Spaced repetition helps you retain information for a longer time period. It means try to recall the same information after some intervals, so, brain starts to think it is an important information and will retain it for a longer period.
But we can’t revise the entire chapter or book again and again. We don’t have time for that. That’s why people create notes. But you won’t because you don’t have time! In my experience it will take you twice or thrice as longer if you also take notes while reading. Additionally, the notes should be written in ways to enforce brain to recall the information and create connection between topics.
I try to solve exactly this problem with this newsletter. I do all the heavy lifting of writing awesome, easy to understand notes for you. So, you get to spend your valuable time with your family or doing whatever you like!
May be these notes are the only reading you need to understand the topic.
I summarise chapters in a selected book into smaller chunks each of 10-15 mins read. I write these summaries in simple question-answer format. These questions are such that it creates a linked flow for brain to grasp all the difficult concept with ease. A combination of spaced repetition and linked neural pathways will help you retain information for a long time. It works for me.
Try it yourself for free here & here. 🤩🤩🤩
Which books, courses, and papers are covered?
First-principles thinking is one of the best ways to reverse-engineer complicated problems and unleash creative possibility. Sometimes called “reasoning from first principles,” the idea is to break down complicated problems into basic elements and then reassemble them from the ground up. It’s one of the best ways to learn to think for yourself, unlock your creative potential, and move from linear to non-linear results. - Farnam Street
Adhering to First-principles thinking I cover books, course, and papers which will provide us a solid foundation in the long term. Generally, these books are theoretically heavy. Don’t worry, my notes have got you covered. By the end of this year you would have finished and retained crucial books in software engineering.
What’s in 2021?
We will cover distributed systems, database design, and system design extensively. Quality over quantity, have a look at our 2021 roadmap. Roadmap is live section and I will keep adding interesting topics to cover.
Why subscribe?
You get notes delivered to your inbox twice every week. That’s 100+ new posts every year. plus access to entire archive. As I grow with your support I will increase frequency of posts covering more and more awesome content in computer science universe. Let’s build the library we all want and need.
