191–200 of 302 posts
One of the few things that I miss about working in an office is a large whiteboard and standing in front of it with a colleague. Working on an architecture with a peer and marker really led to some elegant class designs.
1) it’s prettier and less messy 2) the digital markers are never dry 3) it encourages more edits and changes
I basically start all my technical designs in excalidraw now
Great discussion. In my opinion, the real takeaway isn’t about notebooks vs. digital tools, it’s about what shifts your mental gears. Every time we switch modes, it forces our brain to pay attention differently. That fresh context can boost focus, creativity, even recall. For example, I recently stopped coding all the time and picked up a new hobby at night, writing. That simple change gave my brain a reset and actua…
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.
What you're talking about is software machining, not software engineering. The difference between the blue collar machinist and the white collar engineer is exactly this view of the machines they use. For an engineer a machine - be in a slide rule, calculator or super computer - is just a tool. You're not doing engineering because you're using the tool. You're doing engineering because you're thinking and the tool he…
None of it is saved. I use it to extend my working memory for complex design problems, and for this purpose I find it very effective. The advantage of paper and pencil is that it is naturally and efficiently amenable to non-linear and somewhat arbitrary patterns of access and representation.
Software really struggles at this because computer UIs force everything into coarse linear workflows no matter the presentation, which makes navigating and rewiring a large number of orthogonal dimensions awkward and inefficient on the best days.
I use engineering paper and a mechanical pencil extensively for software development work, a habit I picked up in my chemical engineering days. None of it is saved. I use it to extend my working memory for complex design problems, and for this purpose I find it very effective. The advantage of paper and pencil is that it is naturally and efficiently amenable to non-linear and somewhat arbitrary patterns of access and…
As we're absorbing this idea... I've seen employment contracts for technical people that arguably might consider these handwritten notes to be IP artifacts, which must be preserved and made accessible to the company.
If that's your situation, you could scribble the date, your name, project, etc. in some margin of the piece of paper, and stick it in a pile/folder. To eventually be scanned, and the file put somewhere accessible, and/or the paper technically preserved.
In a startup, you might also want to preserve things like these for nostalgia, even if they have no IP value. One seed startup, I kept a folder of "nostalgia" photos, video clips, screenshots, etc., of early prototypes, people working late, incremental successes, etc., and it was quickly a good thing. It's amazing how well you can progress, and what positive feelings you have some of these things that quickly become nostalgic. Anyone can see the current state of the code in the repo, but here's the pencil sketch on quadrille paper (or a napkin) one evening that became our architecture.
Some of the most intelligent people I've ever met in math, physics, and computer science don't even use a notebook. They use printer paper and pen. When they're done, they throw the paper away. I have seldom found personal notes from far in the past to be useful. If there's something worth noting down, then it goes into documentation, so others can stumble upon whatever quirk I've come across in the future. If there'…
I periodically review the notes and summarize anything worth keeping into the appropriate system of record (calendar, tickets, wiki, spaced repetition, doesn't matter). Like you, I find that very little is actually worth keeping. And that's fine; the paper notes are not a system of record but more of an extension of working memory.
I use engineering paper and a mechanical pencil extensively for software development work, a habit I picked up in my chemical engineering days. None of it is saved. I use it to extend my working memory for complex design problems, and for this purpose I find it very effective. The advantage of paper and pencil is that it is naturally and efficiently amenable to non-linear and somewhat arbitrary patterns of access and…
> None of it is saved. As we're absorbing this idea... I've seen employment contracts for technical people that arguably might consider these handwritten notes to be IP artifacts, which must be preserved and made accessible to the company. If that's your situation, you could scribble the date, your name, project, etc. in some margin of the piece of paper, and stick it in a pile/folder. To eventually be scanned, and t…
I do go through all the old papers when I discard them but 99% of the time there is no discernible value. The thought process that created them is strongly non-linear, which does not lend itself to naive linear consumption at all later date.
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.
OP here. Last time my blog caught attention in HN, I was told I'm "living in a fantasy" and this time it's "pure romanticism". The tools you shared are of course important and I enjoy having them a lot. Wouldn't want to work as a developer without version control or debuggers, for sure. Those are tools that if I lost them, it surely would slow me down and be annoying. I do truly consider notebook more important to me…
When people criticize like that, you know you’re doing something right. “Only people doing less than you will criticize “
Keep it up!