I think the main takeaway here is not that org mode will make you more productive, but that taking notes will. I have tried many programs including org mode, and found that OneNote works best for me. It is stored in the cloud so always available, has native clients for mobile, and a web client. It does impose a bit of structure which some people may or may not like.
Emac’s Org Mode will improve your software engineering
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Re: Emac’s Org Mode will improve your software engineering
#42I don't know why so many people make the point that hierarchical structures are how the brain works. Graphical structures are how the brain works. The hierarchical structure is how the physical world works (you can't put the same shirt in two closets), and we have an unfortunate habit of trying to force our brain to work the same way, but it's an impedance mismatch. Unless I'm the only one that is frustrated that you…
Emacs / Orgmode can be graphical with tables and inline images: http://orgmode.org/manual/Images-and-tables.html Orgmode tables have let me finally ditch excel for most uses, and bring tables to my Git based workflow. I also like to keep picture mode on, but I am not allergic to trailing white space https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/PictureMode
I much prefer to work in a text based world. When I write I draft in vi and then have some scripts that have the formatting turned into something word can deal with for sharing.
So you have to share tables through excel that come from org mode? If so, how do you manage that?
Re: Emac’s Org Mode will improve your software engineering
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Emacs org-mode will be there long after OneNote is gone. And the format is all text. It's a life-long investment.
Honestly, I'm working on reducing my dependence on computers/pen/pencil/whatever for todo lists and organization. I try and keep it all in my head -- if I can't, that usually means I'm biting off way more than I can chew.
I am all for whatever works for you, but GTD and some other psychology texts make an argument against this: that writing things down allows you to release them from your memory and thus focus more clearly, which GTD refers to as a mind like water.
Re: Emac’s Org Mode will improve your software engineering
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Emacs / Orgmode can be graphical with tables and inline images: http://orgmode.org/manual/Images-and-tables.html Orgmode tables have let me finally ditch excel for most uses, and bring tables to my Git based workflow. I also like to keep picture mode on, but I am not allergic to trailing white space https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/PictureMode
I much prefer to work in a text based world. When I write I draft in vi and then have some scripts that have the formatting turned into something word can deal with for sharing. So you have to share tables through excel that come from org mode? If so, how do you manage that?
Orgmode can convert tables to csv. http://orgmode.org/manual/Translator-functions.html
If I have to deal with others I just use excel directly though. Orgmode is for me and my command line.
Re: Emac’s Org Mode will improve your software engineering
#45"It will never be a replacement for Atlassian’s or Asana’s project management software. A Story or Epic on JIRA could be one of the final outputs of your note-taking and planning using Emacs Org-mode."
I've recently started to use org-jira for keeping notes, its old and a bit clunky but it s a nice way of keeping notes, keeping jira upto date and avoiding clunk. Highly recommend
DrS
Re: Emac’s Org Mode will improve your software engineering
#46I finally got GTD implemented in OneNote. Now you're telling me I now need to move on to Emacs org mode? God, it's like trying to choose a Javascript framework.
Except that you ll have a lot of fun trying to share and migrate your one note to whatever else
Re: Emac’s Org Mode will improve your software engineering
#47I don't know why so many people make the point that hierarchical structures are how the brain works. Graphical structures are how the brain works. The hierarchical structure is how the physical world works (you can't put the same shirt in two closets), and we have an unfortunate habit of trying to force our brain to work the same way, but it's an impedance mismatch. Unless I'm the only one that is frustrated that you…
You're right about hierarchy in the world, but there's a deeper truth that you're missing that relates to hierarchical structures being more amenable to description:
The fact then that many complex systems have a nearly decomposable,
hierarchic structure is a major facilitating factor enabling us to
understand, describe, and even "see" such systems and their parts.
Or perhaps the proposition should be put the other way around. If
there are important systems in the world that are complex without
being hierarchic, they may to a considerable extent escape our
observation and understanding. Analysis of their behavior would
involve such detailed knowledge and calculation of the interactions
of their elementary parts that it would beyond our capacities of
memory or computation.
- Herbert A. Simon, "The Sciences of the Artificial", 2nd edition, page 218
Re: Emac’s Org Mode will improve your software engineering
#48I use my own wiki for everything I want to remember, and have used it as a GTD method. But in the end I moved away for GTD stuff. I used Chandler, and really liked it, but then it was abandoned. Then I used Quickfox Notes in Firefox to make a simple plaintext todo list. That works OK til now. Lately I've been using Evernote more and more, and now I mix them all more or less.
I've tried Emacs, tried the Eclipse todo, but neither caught on with me. I hear great things about Emacs and about Vim, and although I use Vim a lot to edit files on the server, I keep having difficulties changing to either of them for development. Maybe it's a matter of time.
Re: Emac’s Org Mode will improve your software engineering
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pencil and paper is much better for me for making quick notes to be honest. I actually don't like writing my brain dumps on a computer because it makes it harder for me to think about them. I find that physically using a pencil helps me develop my ideas more because I have to reiterate what I'm writing while writing it. It's definitely a personal preference, maybe it comes from the fact that I always draw things on p…
Personally, if I am dumping thoughts out, keyboard and screen works well, especially if it's text heavy and long (like a blog post or story chapter). On the other hand, if am trying to understand something, I prefer a pencil and paper and writing it down and perhaps drawing things makes me understand it better.
I guess it depends on what /kind/ of brain dump it is. I usually like writing up blog posts on a computer too. But for jotting down "things I did today" and "list of things to do tomorrow", it feels much more natural to write it down. But that's probably my research student genes coming out (my supervisors gave me a book on my first day and said "WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN" -- and I guess it's stuck with me for the past year or two).
Re: Emac’s Org Mode will improve your software engineering
#50I don't know why so many people make the point that hierarchical structures are how the brain works. Graphical structures are how the brain works. The hierarchical structure is how the physical world works (you can't put the same shirt in two closets), and we have an unfortunate habit of trying to force our brain to work the same way, but it's an impedance mismatch. Unless I'm the only one that is frustrated that you…
Graphical structures are how the brain works
Not my brain. Mine is spacially topographic, and ontologically N-way associative (and, fafaik, ontologies are hierarchical). But I can't think of any way to describe my brain as graphical.
What is a graphical structure, btw?