The software engineering notebook

Plain Text:

Pros > Simplest, works everywhere/on everything, scales well (append forever!)

Cons > Least automated, no images, no math, no code, hyperlinks depend on editor, no embedded files

WYSIWYG Doc Editor (Word, Writer, etc):

Pros > As easy as plain text, can do images/math/hyperlinks/embedded files, somewhat portable

Cons > Bad at code, not many automated features, unwieldy once file gets large

Markup language tool (Org-Mode, Wikis, etc):

Pros > Powerful, portable, good at code/links, scales well, highly configurable, highly scaleable

Cons > Have to learn the markup language, mostly bad at math, high up-front costs (e.g. needing to set up a server or learn alien keyboard shortcuts), non-wysiwyg feels less like a "quick note" and more like a professional document, image/doc embedding can be hit or miss

Note-taking app (Onenote, Evernote, etc):

Pros > Automates lots of note-taking tasks (e.g. time stamping/tagging), can do images/math*/hyperlinks/embedded files, scales... fairly well

Cons > Least portable (dependent on app-specific sync features which may change), less simple (best use of notebook features are non-obvious), still bad at code

Electronic lab notebooks (ELNs) (labfolder, benchling, etc):

Pros > Good for organizing/presenting data, embedding files, scale very well, have collaboration features

Cons > Very not-simple (most require either require server config, or you don't own your data), most are somehow still bad at math/code, frequently expensive and not portable

Task Managers / To-do lists (Trello, Asana, etc):

Pros > Very intuitive to use, can sort of embed documents/images, have collab features

Cons > Not good for longer-form notes, bad at math, not meant for note-taking, you mostly don't own your data

Others:

Jupyter/Mathematica can do WYSIWYG text, code, math, data, and images all in one document. However, Mathematica is expensive, and Jupyter is non-trivial to get up and running. These tools are primarily geared towards creating a polished document, and are less good at documenting the evolution of ideas inherent in note-taking.

Personal Diary/Journal software is mostly underwhelming, most of these seem like cut-down note-taking apps sold to the non-tech-savvy

I've found that for some reasons I simply cannot consume/read .md in source form.

After all having rendered in larger font means something, right?

My notes track knowledge, they are referenced as-needed so I store everything because there's low/no cost. I've also found that writing things down improves my recollection, so there's value even if I never reference the note again.

My calendar / omnifocus track future actions, I minimize these and keep them very well curated - no "todo", only "do". Externalizing some cognition takes time in exchange for efficiency... less overhead from context switching or remembering unrelated items.

The tradeoff is loosely analogous to scheduling in computing - inefficient for an isolated single thread of work, but beneficial when coordinating lots of concurrent work.

Working on this has definitely helped me learn these concepts much better and deeper, plus it's easy to go back and find things when I need them. Just reading something is not a good way to absorb information. Actually having to regurgitate something in your own words makes a huge difference.

Gitbook is not the best place for all my notes. Will be using Evernote going forward.