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As a developer, my most important tools are a pen and a notebook

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Re: As a developer, my most important tools are a pen and a notebook

#31

Post by aerhardt »

zwnow wrote: post #7
js4ever wrote: post #5

Calling a notebook the “most important tool” for a dev is pure romanticism. Useful for some, sure, but let's not pretend it outweighs a debugger, version control, or CI. This isn't craftsmanship cosplay, it's software engineering.

In a few years of my career now I never had to use a debugger or CI. Console debugging is good enough usually. On version control I agree.

I do not know what you work on, but debugging is indispensable for certain workloads. Print debugging doesn’t come close to setting up a breakpoint and inspecting every single variable in the stack with a good interface. You don’t even have to select what to print and where, anything can be printed anywhere in two clicks. A UI like the debuggers in Jetbrains IDEs provides smart rendering for all types so that for example map or list elements can be collapsed. The entire call stack is neatly organized and searchable too. It saves hours, creates less friction and also greatly enhances exploratory debugging, where you don’t even know where in the call stack your problem might be. I’d feel very hindered and unhappy if I didn’t have access to a good debugger.

Re: As a developer, my most important tools are a pen and a notebook

#34

Post by serial_dev »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #2

I don't understand the pen/physical notebook thing. It's slow to write, insanely slow to search what you've written, almost impossible to copy or share.

I took the pen+notebook idea a bit further, I use pen+paper (a sheet of paper).

To me, none of the qualities you listed matter when it comes to sketching ideas, thinking about problems, staying on track while problem solving. When I'm done with the task, I read through my notes once and throw it out.

Re: As a developer, my most important tools are a pen and a notebook

#35

Post by blippage »

mosselman wrote: post #30
js4ever wrote: post #5

Calling a notebook the “most important tool” for a dev is pure romanticism. Useful for some, sure, but let's not pretend it outweighs a debugger, version control, or CI. This isn't craftsmanship cosplay, it's software engineering.

Thanks for pointing this out. In the same vein there are so many posts about productivity systems where people put endless amount of time into crafting their gtd notebooks with tabs and lists, etc. All that time spent to be productive instead of actually being productive. Or people describing their ideal Obsidian work flows instead of actually noting anything useful down in it. People writing about how they built the…

As some wag on Reddit put it, "Digital Note Taking Systems: Cutting and pasting your life away, one note at a time."

Re: As a developer, my most important tools are a pen and a notebook

#36

Post by serial_dev »

jes5199 wrote: post #27
kubami wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the context of this post it's not about preserving or sharing the thoughts. Writing, in this case, is a "thinking tool". Forcing yourself to materialise the thoughts as actual, written, text helps form clear ideas.

that’s so alien to me. for me, writing by hand is frustrating to the point of distraction. if I want to think clearly, my best bet is to do it silently, in my head.

That's great if you can do it!

To me, if the problem is too complex, or more likely, if I expect to be distracted by family and chores, "building in my head" is not the best option as it all falls apart and need to build it up from scratch (though admittedly faster than last time).

Re: As a developer, my most important tools are a pen and a notebook

#37

Post by WalterBright »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #2

I don't understand the pen/physical notebook thing. It's slow to write, insanely slow to search what you've written, almost impossible to copy or share.

If you want to get the most out of a physics lecture, leave the laptop at home. Instead, bring a spiral notebook and some colored pens. Write everything down the prof writes on the blackboard.

It's remarkable how much of the lecture you'll remember. And when you read your handwritten notes, you'll remember the lecture that went with it.

Re: As a developer, my most important tools are a pen and a notebook

#38

Post by MrGilbert »

gofreddygo wrote: post #22
bufferoverflow wrote: post #2

I don't understand the pen/physical notebook thing. It's slow to write, insanely slow to search what you've written, almost impossible to copy or share.

Funny. I was tolling the virtues of my spiral notebook which is always on my desk to a coworker, whom I was trying to get out of some trouble and i got... silence. That notebook is the difference between said coworker and I. She didn't get it. That notebook is the fastest most accessible tool to capture my thoughts. I can state concisely what was discussed in a team meeting last october before any notetaking tool boo…

I think an analog note taking device (woah!) requires more discipline than a digital one. In the digital world, you can always re-arrange your chaos at almost no cost, whereas you are screwed in the analog world. I'm curious: How do you organize your notes? If you mind to share.

Re: As a developer, my most important tools are a pen and a notebook

#39

Post by karn97 »

zwnow wrote: post #7
js4ever wrote: post #5

Calling a notebook the “most important tool” for a dev is pure romanticism. Useful for some, sure, but let's not pretend it outweighs a debugger, version control, or CI. This isn't craftsmanship cosplay, it's software engineering.

In a few years of my career now I never had to use a debugger or CI. Console debugging is good enough usually. On version control I agree.

You seem to have worked on small simple projects thus far then.

Re: As a developer, my most important tools are a pen and a notebook

#40

Post by planb »

zwnow wrote: post #7
js4ever wrote: post #5

Calling a notebook the “most important tool” for a dev is pure romanticism. Useful for some, sure, but let's not pretend it outweighs a debugger, version control, or CI. This isn't craftsmanship cosplay, it's software engineering.

In a few years of my career now I never had to use a debugger or CI. Console debugging is good enough usually. On version control I agree.

I don't know you or your work. But I know (senior) developers that don't use a debugger and I've often noticed that when fixing a bug, they don't build a full mental model of what really goes wrong and often just fix the symptoms. Think "that shouldn't be null, we need a null check here" instead of "why is this value null? we should check here, but also make sure the caller works correctly."
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