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Exactly. Memorization is the process of committing something to memory. Things like spaced repetition, flashcards, using mnemonics, etc. Memoization is the technique of caching expensive function calls and returning those cached values upon subsequent invocations.

Seeing the word memorize implies a process that an actor is undergoing and says nothing about the data being memorized. Seeing the word memoize implies the existence of an expensive function and implies a process of repeated calls to the function. It also implies the function is pure, i.e. you can't memoize calls to fread().



Memoization implies caching specifically, which implies its own things, such as cache size and eviction methodology. Not something that's necessarily thought of when using the term "memory".

Memoization is close enough to "memorization" that you pretty much know what it is without having heard of it before and easily rememberable, while being specific enough to the actual concept as to be easily searchable and imply specific concerns of its own. That's a win-win in my book.


Sadly, the older I get the more I am aware of my memory's aggressive cache eviction policy.


You and me both. :

But that's part of it, you generally don't really associate that with memory until you get older...




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