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Aquiles Carattino
Aquiles Carattino

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I started a digital garden and so should you

A month ago I decided to start a digital garden, which is, in a way, an evolution to plain note-taking. The core idea is that you write down your thoughts and create links between the notes. Each note is then a seed that can sprout and create new insight, new knowledge. Generally speaking I liked the idea, but what really made me take the plunge was that it was the approach I was looking for to lower my barrier at pushing content online.

Over the years I have started, growth, and abandoned many blogs. A problem I always had (and didn't realize) was that blogs force a certain structure and quality for each article. Therefore, if I wanted to write about Python I created a blog for that. If I want to write about my vacation trips, I had a blog for that. But every time I wanted to put something online, I had to spend countless hours polishing the content.

Then it enters into scene the idea of Learning in Public. If you and your readers agree that what they are looking at is work in progress, that mistakes, unfinished thoughts are allowed, then the self-imposed barrier for quality drops.

For many developers I think this can be of great help. Instead of pushing themselves to write tutorials, and very extensive articles, a digital garden allows for code snippets, or half-baked ideas. Perhaps you don't cover all cases, or all applications, but it can still be a stepping stone for something bigger once connected to other thoughts.

Even though I could have always taken notes, knowing that I am making them public gives me joy. That feeling helps me dedicate few minutes every morning, before starting my daily work duties to write down the ideas I have in my mind, the things I've read, the podcasts I've listened to.

It is too early to tell if it will have any lasting impact on my learning process or my overall content generation flow. For sure I had fun building it and I still have fun pushing content to it as often as I can.

If you want to see it in action, head to aquiles.me

Top comments (4)

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cipharius profile image
Valts Liepiņš

Curious approach!

I've recently seen rise of other similar note taking systems based on Zettelkasten system.
Here is one interesting example: github.com/srid/neuron

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aquicarattino profile image
Aquiles Carattino

I decoupled the note taking program from the 'garden'. Whatever outputs markdown is enough, hence low entry barrier and easy interoperability.

Whatever note taking method floats your boat is better than no method.

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detzam profile image
webstuff

Soo.. you re using ML ?

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aquicarattino profile image
Aquiles Carattino

No, why?