Review of the month: Code, Make it Stick, and Learning How to Learn

10 min readMay 3, 2021

Hi! in today's post, I’m going to give you a review on the 2 books, Code and Make it Stick. In addition, I’m going to talk about a course called: “Learning how to Learn” free on Coursera.

Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software

Code is a book about the principles and pillars that sustain modern technology, mainly computers.

If you want to have a clear idea and a general notion of how is everything working and how are these things possible behind the scenes of technology, take a look into the pages of Code. Charles Petzold, the author of this book, makes it clear that his objective is to give you a deep understanding of the most complex concepts about computers.

If you are trying to master the concepts of computer science, it is a good idea to understand the context of computers and at the same time, connect the different concepts that you have to learn through the journey of learning CS.

As a matter of fact, I won't say that code is a simple book, but it isn't either a complex one, you have to pay close attention to the concepts and how they are related, Charles Petzold makes this easy by going to past concepts, again and again, allowing you to understand the full image of the ideas behind the book, even if you don't become an expert in the field you will develop that necessary chunk of information to understand what's behind of our modern tools and instruments.

How am I applying “Code” concepts in my life?

The book gives us a new panorama of how to think about the things around us. I think that the use of metaphors and analogies really helped me grasp the concepts, hence, that’s something I’m considering practicing when learning new concepts, especially in the CS field.

I got the idea of how programming languages, operating systems, logic operations, boolean algebra, electrical circuits/elements, signals, internal modules or components of computers, and finally physical and wired networks are related to one another, forming a big structure of communication using bits through electricity. Isn’t this fascinating? How a simple electrical pulse is able to be manipulated with the use of specific components, mathematics, and materials to create all kinds of technology. This indeed is the future, but it is necessary to understand the basics of these concepts to be prepared for what is coming, this wave of technology.

One thing to highlight also is that we can relate what we have learned to how our brain works. The analogy of centralized processing, the use of short-term and long-term memories among others. Whenever I try to understand or remember how is that working I just remember how does my brain work.

Make it Stick

This book can be kind of a lifesaver book, or more precisely a time-saving book. I’m really into things about learning about how our intelligence works, how do we learn, and the secret life of our minds. This book doesn’t disappoint, it actually has contributed to my knowledge in this area more than I imagined.

This book talks about the myths or misconceptions we have or may always had about the way we learn, it gives you advice on several elements that contribute to our learning and how do we make things really stay in our memories.

Essentially, the process of learning can be a difficult topic to master, there are lots of opinions about the subject, but learning has been studied for years and now we have access to important information to understand so we can take advantage of our natural internal processes.

What I’m trying to say here is that, in order to not waste our time, it is necessary not only to work hard but work and learn smartly.

How am I applying this to my life?

The first thing that comes to my mind is that we aren’t taught to take risks and dive deep into the unknown. Therefore, this is something I want to highlight, the fact that we misunderstood learning, we need to make mistakes, we need to try what’s hard for us even if we haven't seen the answer. I have been changing the way I think about the things that I don’t know, instead of seeing them as something intimidating I have begun to process them as opportunities to grow, so I have been exposing myself to new things.

One practice that has stuck to me has been the process of review some new material, create notes about the subject, and then reflect on what did I learn, how can this be applied to my life, am I already applying this without even noticing? After this process a rewrite my thoughts on the subject to create the blogs that I have been posting.

Another thing that is in the book that has been helpful to me is to mix up our practice. We tend to focus our learning on one topic at a time, we can get stuck somewhere and this can also be translated into us losing motivation. One technique that I have been applying is to learn not only one thing but mixing topics. For example, if I’m trying to figure out how to solve an algorithm and get stuck, instead of distracting myself to something that is not beneficial to me, I tend to work on something else, learn about another thing, and distract my mind so I can come back later and try it again.

Lastly, we can conclude:

Embrace difficulties: Fear of failure can poison learning. Practice testing yourself on the things you learn and create relationships between concepts.
Avoid illusions of knowing: Try to learn the things that are the most complicated to you, don’t stay in your comfortable zone keeping re-learning what you already learned. Go further.
Don’t stop increasing your abilities: The effort itself extends the boundaries of our abilities. Embrace a growth mindset, what we do shapes who we become and therefore what we are capable of doing.

Learning how to learn

This is the title of a course on Coursera about techniques and concepts that will enable you to succeed (if used correctly) in your learning paths. Barb Oakley and Terry Sejnowski are the instructors that guide you through the course, they have studied the field for several years, do research about their names and contributions if you are interested in knowing more.

The course has similarities with the last book that I described, and in order to not sound repetitive, here I'm going to list the techniques that I learned and I think might be beneficial for you to know. Enjoy!

There are 2 kinds of modes of thinking:

Focus mode: Concentrates on specific areas.
Diffuse mode: Reach a lot of areas without concentrating on any one specific area.

Metaphors and analogies are quite useful when trying to learn and stick with something. For example, to gain muscle you have to exercise a little bit every day, the same way to build a neural structure. So use metaphors.

Learning changes the structure of the brain. Think it this way, when you go to sleep, you wake up with an upgrade. Awesome isn’t it?

Procrastination, something we all fear, avoid, or might maybe practice without even notice. This is a natural response of our brain to avoid doing what makes us uncomfortable. A way of attack this problem is to use a technique to focus our attention.

Pomodoro’s technique: Begin with small steps

Focus on your learning for 25 minutes (no distractions).
Reward: Do something else for a period of time that is not related to your learning.
Practice by coming back after short rests.

It is proven that doing a little every day is more beneficial than trying to put in a lot in just one session. If you are struggling with this use Pomodoro!

Now, let’s create a connection of the concept of Pomodoro with another technique which is: Space repetition.

Practice the concept you want to learn over several days, leave spaces between days and continue, this not only ensures you stick with the concepts but also is the path of mastery. Do Pomodoros on the days you want to practice.

Another important thing to remark, sleep is important. Sleeping keeps your brain clean and healthy. Little sleep just affects your day-to-day, but in the long term, it might also produce all sorts of nasty conditions and diseases. So please watch your sleep, without it is like you never learn what you did.

Now that new neurons are being born in our brains from the hippocampus. A way of stimulating this process is to being exposed to an enriched environment or exercise. These 2 things will increase the number of neurons that are being born and survive.

Be persistent, there are no limits when it comes to increasing your abilities, don't let anything stopping you from growing.

When learning a concept create chunks:

Focus your attention.
Understand the basic idea, and revisit through recall and testing yourself.
Gain context, see related problems and learn when to use certain tools.

So do rapid walkthroughs to gain context, focus, and then practice and recall.

Be careful of the illusions of competence:

We tend to re-read or keep doing the same (overlearning), this will stop us from learning and put a barrier to our learning, be open and please go for the most difficult challenges.
Test yourself and recall the material.
Deliberate practice means focusing on the more difficult material.
Mix your learning: Do what you can to mix up your learning.

Tackle procrastination is possible. Avoid and identify the environments, objects, and situations that trigger your mind to procrastinate.

It can become difficult to work on certain things when we are eager for the product that we’re going to get from them. Using willpower is a possibility but you shouldn't waste that resource on things that you can manipulate to do without being anxious. The key is to focus on the process, on the concepts you’re working on, not on the things you might get at the end, this will boost your motivation also.

Keep a planner journal. Why? Our working mind has limited slots, if you take some information and save it in place you can access it whenever you want will liberate some slots and also allow more important things to go in.

There is also a technique to memorize things from various topics in one place, it is called the memory palace technique. Imagine a place you know well and place an image of the things you want to learn in the different rooms of the place you imagine.

Lastly, I want to share one last hint with an example of my real life. It has been proven that changing your thinking about the things you have to do, for example presenting an important test, from “I’m nervous” to “I’m very excited” has actually an enormous repercussion on your performance. If you change your thoughts you can really change your life.

What happened was that for the last few weeks I have been doing important presentations on very interesting and challenging topics, I improved little by little through my presentations by receiving feedback, nevertheless, I felt there was something that I can try to improve further my performance. I was having a problem with crutches, so the last presentation I did I changed something, besides practicing I began to repeat to myself “Enjoy the presentation! I’m very excited”, over and over again. When it came the moment I didn’t even notice but a made no crutches.

Final thoughts

Computers have a lot to say, understanding them is going to give us a context in what we do, allowing us also to make connections between ideas and letting us going further in our learning on CS.

It is fascinating how computers are related somehow to us, it is indeed something obvious since we humans developed technology similar to us, they use a form of written languages to communicate and learn.

There have been lots of myths about how we learned, take advantage of tools like the ones on this post to unlearn what is stopping you from getting to your goals.

Before these few weeks of learning, I felt that I wasn’t doing bad but there was something I was missing, something that felt like a barrier to get to my goals. Through the last weeks and challenges presented I understand that we can grow our abilities in short periods of time and maintain this rhythm over time. It hasn't been easy, but as we learned we must avoid falling into the illusions of competence, we need to keep enjoying learning by facing new and more challenging tests and projects. Learning about the world of software development has been amazing, no matter what your path is the process of learning the principles and practices behind software development will push you to keep growing in any field. I’m very glad of the opportunity that I had to join the Academy program at Encora and I’m very excited for the things that will come next.

One thing that I can say is that perseverance will take us to our goals, we just have to learn smarter, and keep pushing others and ourselves through collaboration. I can say I have improved a lot since I began the program, I still have a long path in front of me, and I can’t wait to face what is coming next.

Thank you for reading, I hope you learned something new. Enjoy your learning!