alt Hacker NewsI feel like I have to disagree here. I don't practice e.g. multiplication or doing math in my head everyday or for years really, but I feel like I'm just as fast at it as I ever was. In fact whenever I have tried things like Lumosity or brain benching games, that I used to do when I was younger, I'm actually faster than when I was younger, despite not having practiced it at all. I feel like all the real world side practice has helped me improve these abilities indirectly, they have all added to my brain's ability to notice novel patterns, see things from different perspectives, apply new intuitive strategies, that I might have not noticed because I was tunnel visioning when I was younger.
There's also plenty of things that I have got for life just by having practiced them when I was child. E.g. I think everyone gets bicycling, but there's also handstand, walking on hands, etc, which I learned as a kid for few years, and I can still do it even if I only do it once a year. In my view code is exactly the same, and maybe in a way even more straightforward, it's easier than obscure math since you don't have to memorize any formulas to solve it easily, albeit I think a lot of math is great because you don't have to memorize formulas in the first place you just have to internalize or figure out the logic or the idea behind it, and then you just have it. I think repetition in math is specifically the wrong way to go about it, it's about understanding, not repetition.
Multiplication is elementary school math which doesn't require any thinking and the learned approach is simple. You can't really compare the simple stuff that's taught to kids, like basic multiplication or riding a bike with stuff that requires domain-specific knowledge and experience.
Think more stuff like "find the angle of lines defined by (x-4y-1=0) and (x-y-2=0)", "write the number 2026 in base 7", "solve an equation sin^2(x) - sin(x) = 0".
I plucked these from our country's high school final exam from this year. Back when I was in high school, I did mine in 60 minutes without an error when the time limit is 150 minutes and I intuitively immediately knew how to approach each task since the moment I saw it. Also all needed formulas are supplied, you don't need to remember any of them.
I plucked these because for these I don't have the immediate "know how" now, I still understand the topics, and could solve them with enough time, but it would require some thinking and thus I would be slower at solving them than when I was in high school, even though I'm pretty sure I could still ace it in the 150 minute time limit.
But reality goes beyond high schoool... College-level math, like derivations/integrations, sums, algebraic proofs, is even harder and solving some of them could take me hours when I could do them in minutes when I was in college.
With code it's the same. I could solve simple Python/Pascal/C++ high school level tasks as fast or faster than when I was in high school, even if I didn't write any code for a couple of years. But we also had assembly class in college, and I would struggle at assembly if I had to code it now, 10+ years later, even though I didn't struggle with it back then.