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The software engineering notebook

winterflower.github.io

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Re: The software engineering notebook

#111

Post by Too »

Koshkin wrote: post #23
goo wrote: post #13

The commitment to taking good notes has been one of the best decisions of my life -- not just professionally. I use my standard text editor (Textmate 2), and have a "notes" project, with all manner of categories organized by folder. I take notes on articles I have read, take notes on any presentations I watch or educational courses I take, or books I read. Moreover, I now take much better in person notes -- I take th…

On the other hand, based on my personal experience, maintaining a constantly growing archive of things, be it notes, bookmarks, emails, etc. turns out to be not very useful. Also, it gradually becomes something that you spend more time on than on other things. I now prefer to be more spontaneous, try to minimize the number of things that drag me into the past, start things as if from scratch, "reset" myself, dismiss…

I also used to keep tons of notes, references, cheat sheets and bookmarks to various topics around. I found the success rate of finding something there vs google was quite low and things quickly became obsolete. Not only did the topics quickly become irrelevant (I would never go back to CVS or SVN when i only use GIT today so why should i keep my old CVS-cheetsheat around, it's just dead weight and waste of time to organize it) but even for up to date technologies the landscape quickly changes, especially in the javascript world. If i re-google something vs read a note i wrote down 3 years ago i might hit an article teaching me a new better way to do something instead of being stuck in my old bubble.

Re: The software engineering notebook

#112

Post by fredsted »

goo wrote: post #13

The commitment to taking good notes has been one of the best decisions of my life -- not just professionally. I use my standard text editor (Textmate 2), and have a "notes" project, with all manner of categories organized by folder. I take notes on articles I have read, take notes on any presentations I watch or educational courses I take, or books I read. Moreover, I now take much better in person notes -- I take th…

What does the folder structure look like?

Re: The software engineering notebook

#113

Post by Too »

amelius wrote: post #78
goo wrote: post #13

The commitment to taking good notes has been one of the best decisions of my life -- not just professionally. I use my standard text editor (Textmate 2), and have a "notes" project, with all manner of categories organized by folder. I take notes on articles I have read, take notes on any presentations I watch or educational courses I take, or books I read. Moreover, I now take much better in person notes -- I take th…

What is the read-versus-write ratio of your notes? I.e., how often do you actually read the things you write down? PS: Have you ever thought about using a "lifelogging camera" instead? :)

Videos reduce the read-vs-write ratio even more for me, they can't be searched or skimmed.

Re: The software engineering notebook

#115

Post by StrangersAdvice »

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…

try zimwiki. http://zim-wiki.org/. It's basicaaly a collection of text files in a markdown format. Each note is a separate file. Has git versioning built in. The zim wiki UI lets you edit the files in a wysiwyg way. It's a open source and has a bunch of nice plugins, including a journal plugin that creates a file for each day.

Re: The software engineering notebook

#116

Post by StrangersAdvice »

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…

You should try zimwiki. http://zim-wiki.org/. It's basicaaly a collection of text files in a markdown format. Each note is a separate file. Has git versioning built in. The zim wiki UI lets you edit the files in a wysiwyg way. It's open source and has a bunch of nice plugins, including a journal plugin that creates a file for each day.

Re: The software engineering notebook

#117

Post by StrangersAdvice »

goo wrote: post #13

The commitment to taking good notes has been one of the best decisions of my life -- not just professionally. I use my standard text editor (Textmate 2), and have a "notes" project, with all manner of categories organized by folder. I take notes on articles I have read, take notes on any presentations I watch or educational courses I take, or books I read. Moreover, I now take much better in person notes -- I take th…

How do you organize your notes? My biggest problem is organizing.

Re: The software engineering notebook

#118

Post by detaro »

krallja wrote: post #90
sizzzzlerz wrote: post #29

Back in college, going for my BSEE degree, the professor or lab assistant were constantly stressing the need to record everything done at the bench in a log book with pages dated and signed. Part of this was to keep a history of lab experiments and remind you of what you did and/or learned. Really, however, it was to develop the habit to carry over into your professional career. There are many examples of this but th…

> dated and signed What's the signature for?

Establish legal link from the contents of the page to the author. At least an attempt to create a record that can be traced afterwards if there are IP/patent or manipulation claims. Some of the rules at least some places have: bound book used page by page, so pages can't easily be inserted afterwards. Numbered pages so they can't be removed. Corrections have to be dated and signed as well, old entry is only thinly crossed out so it's still legible. Empty spaces crossed out.

Re: The software engineering notebook

#120

Post by atmosx »

Too wrote: post #111
Koshkin wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, based on my personal experience, maintaining a constantly growing archive of things, be it notes, bookmarks, emails, etc. turns out to be not very useful. Also, it gradually becomes something that you spend more time on than on other things. I now prefer to be more spontaneous, try to minimize the number of things that drag me into the past, start things as if from scratch, "reset" myself, dismiss…

I also used to keep tons of notes, references, cheat sheets and bookmarks to various topics around. I found the success rate of finding something there vs google was quite low and things quickly became obsolete. Not only did the topics quickly become irrelevant (I would never go back to CVS or SVN when i only use GIT today so why should i keep my old CVS-cheetsheat around, it's just dead weight and waste of time to o…

I'm doing something similar. I prefer pen and paper. For someone reason digital notebooks don't have the same effect on me as physical notebooks.

I read my notes every now and then. But what the notebook does mostly is make me focus and concentrate on my goals and remind me what's important. As the parent said, a notebook enhances your long term memory. You re-iterate lessons learned/forgotten. It's not a bookmarking tool.

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