The software engineering notebook • Hacker News Board

Re: The software engineering notebook

#101

Post by jkmcf » Sun, Oct 15, 2017, 4:27 AM UTC

For me, celerity of access makes my note taking possible. Mouse over a hot zone and the editor slides out. Mouse away, and it hides.

I used to use SideNote, but that was abandoned. I'm currently using SideWriter, but it's a little flaky.

I hope to start learning swift soon so I can develop my own with some extra features, mainly markdown and either tabs/multiple hot zones.

My memory is horrible, so I need to write down what I did/thought before it vanishes. Mostly comes in handy when I have to justify to HR why they need to give me a raise.

Re: The software engineering notebook

#102

Post by ptr_void » Sun, Oct 15, 2017, 4:39 AM UTC

Used vimwiki for a while until I accidentally deleted few top level file with lots of file links and now it is almost impossible to get it all organized again without going through very file. Tried some DIY versions with markdown files in directory structure, but the solution isn't too good.

Re: The software engineering notebook

#103

Post by xor1 » Sun, Oct 15, 2017, 4:58 AM UTC

Quiver is the closest thing I've found to what I consider my perfect note-taking software. I think getting any closer would involve writing my own at this point, and that's simply not going to happen.

Re: The software engineering notebook

#104

Post by crispinb » Sun, Oct 15, 2017, 5:22 AM UTC

xor1 wrote: post #103

Quiver is the closest thing I've found to what I consider my perfect note-taking software. I think getting any closer would involve writing my own at this point, and that's simply not going to happen.

Same here. It's perhaps a slight shame that development has been so slow over the last year or two. But OTOH to be honest it's good enough as it is to be far more useful to me than any other note taking app I've used.

Re: The software engineering notebook

#105

Post by amirmansour » Sun, Oct 15, 2017, 5:38 AM UTC

If you're on a Mac, I highly recommend Quiver - "The Programmer's Notebook" (http://happenapps.com)

No affiliation, just like and use it :)

Re: The software engineering notebook

#106

Post by jgamman » Sun, Oct 15, 2017, 5:43 AM UTC

yep i do and i've carried the habit from the lab into the workforce. it's mostly a write-many, read-few kind of thing but i've got a very loose system for capturing Action Items and i find having doodle space helps me keep track of the discussions other people are hafving. but then, i'm an ex-chemist too so biased sample... ;-)

Re: The software engineering notebook

#107

Post by jypepin » Sun, Oct 15, 2017, 6:59 AM UTC

I take A LOT of notes of everything. Mostly because I like writing things down. I NEVER find myself coming back to those, ever.

Re: The software engineering notebook

#108

Post by akvadrako » Sun, Oct 15, 2017, 7:35 AM UTC

bloaf wrote: post #52

I've been actively looking for a good tool for personal note taking, and finding lots of things that seem not-quite-right. 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/embedd…

Jupyter is trivial to get up and running. I did it just a couple weeks ago and it took under 5 minutes. There is a docker image but I think I just did "pip install jupyter" and "jupyter notebook".

Re: The software engineering notebook

#109

Post by stevenleeg » Sun, Oct 15, 2017, 7:35 AM UTC

rocketcity wrote: post #25

I have adopted this practice over the last year and have found immense value in the practice. I believe this practice is one of the cheapest ways to help leverage your previous experience on the job as you keep yourself from having to repeat previous learnings over and over again as you try to remember what those compiler flags you used 6 months ago actually were :). My system is quite simple. I have created a github…

If you're looking for a more structured version of this, I'd highly recommend checking out vimwiki[1]. Its diary feature does exactly what you mention, plus it will autogenerate a nice index file for you (among many other features).

[1] https://github.com/vimwiki/vimwiki

Re: The software engineering notebook

#110

Post by mumonz » Sun, Oct 15, 2017, 7:42 AM UTC

I have a small website in the wild. Every page is a markdown file with notes and ideas about a subject. The entire website is git versioned. I keep a copy of the git repo on Dropbox to easily edit articles and push to upstream (that is the place where the website is hosted). Ah... there is an sqlite file with a single table with the following cols: article-name, file-path, creation-date, tags (for search by argument). Article last edit time is taken directly by the file. Every meta-info is shown on top of the html rendered markdown file (i use Parsedown)