Show HN: Trane, an automated system for learning complex skills (github.com)
I released Trane over the weekend: https://github.com/trane-project/trane. Trane is an automated system for learning complex skills. Think of it like defining a skills tree (technically a graph) of all the smaller skills you need to master a complex skill and having an automated system to automatically traverse the graph as you master them.
The seed for Trane was planted after my frustration trying to learn music, and jazz in particular. There are simply too many things you need to master first (e.g. knowing the names of a note, knowing where the notes are in your instrument, timing, etc) and it becomes difficult to track what it is that you should focus on, and there is a process of constant atrophy, even if you practice consistently.
Trane is an early state, but is already usable. I have released a command line interface at https://github.com/trane-project/trane-cli and some music courses at https://github.com/trane-project/trane-music.
I would like to get some ideas in regard to what other skills could be a good fit for Trane. I am thinking chess, programming, or languages could be a fit. I am wondering if Trane could be applied to something like learning pure mathematics. I would love to hear any suggestions. Perhaps there's some of you who have found a similar issue while practicing your own hobbies.
35 comments
[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 98.8 ms ] threadThe only difference in normal usage is that you eventually reach the threshold to be shown more difficult units.
Generally, this is the biggest barrier for me when trying out stuff - there are repos with explanations, but nothing to show how it actually looks or works.
Please add at least sample screenshot of your command line! :D
TaskWarrior is a good sample - it has a page that shows one workflow with commands, so you instantly feel like you know how to use it. If they just said "this is a todo app" etc, I don't think I would have tried it. I've also tried to convey what my app looks like exactly with actual screenshots - https://github.com/CatalanCabbage/the-wall
Or maybe it's just me being obsessed over this stuff.
Anyway, looking forward to try your app! I've wanted something similar for a while. Right now I use a spreadsheet for spaced repetition (with columns for difficulty and time)
The link to music repo is broken in your readme though :(
I might mess with this on the weekend. I think the sciences would appreciate this tool.
https://www.trane.com/index.html
The only reason to fight for a trademark is if you are at the risk of "genericization", like happened to Kleenex or Xerox. If someone else is using your trademark to refer to something that is a substitute for your product (i.e. using Kleenex to refer to another brand of tissue paper), that's where you need to step up.
However, that's an exception. In general, you just have to actively use your trademark in relation to your product to keep it, and you are not required to fight other companies who make similar trademarks but do not risk genericazation.
This case is very clearly a case where the term is being used in a totally different non-confusing way, which means it's both not a trademark violation, and also that there's no risk of genericization occurring.
The two things in question are so different it would be like suggesting that Apple has to sue my local coffee shop to retain its "Cocoa" trademark (the software UX toolkit) since my local coffee shop sells cocoa.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
I'd be more worried about someone in John Coltrane's estate having an issue with it.
What’s a good resource to build “excercise” units for learning the piano in a system like this?
If you want to learn the piano, it'd be useful to be able to reference an external resource. I am thinking of mostly using https://www.soundslice.com/ to create the music sheet. There's already a special asset to reference a soundslice link, although it probably needs some improvement (add a description along the link for example). This asset is at https://github.com/trane-project/trane/blob/master/src/data....
Once there's a graphic interface, these kinds of resources could be embedded inside the app so that users don't have to switch context.
But for now, an exercise that says "go practice measures X through Y in this slice at this link" or "practice piece #X from book Y" should be enough to build the exercises.
The ideas behind Trane don't work for things where we haven't had good pedagogical development -- but they are the state of the art for things where we have!
And yeah, I started with music because it both has an established pedagogy that is centuries old, and the process consists mostly of repeating the same task until it soaks into your nervous system to the point you can do it without thinking.
But I am curious about the actual extent of the skills that would benefit from this. I suspect it's a matter of having experts break up the domain knowledge and the right exercises/tasks. Like, could anyone learn soccer using Trane? Have the tasks being progressively more difficult drills?
Language is a great example next to music. Both are as old as humanity, yet we still can’t reliably teach anyone a second language. But it’s obvious that it’s possible because there are people who regularly achieve this.
I set up Trane as a library rather than a monolith app because I think another use would be embedding Trane into another application's tutorial mode. So one could open Blender, click an option on the help menu, and open a tutorial that progressively teaches you the ropes of the app and keeps your progress.
I was thinking of fighting games, which already have tutorial modes, but something like Blender or Photoshop is also a good candidate.