Adam Davis

Posted on Mar 23, 2022

How do you take notes while you code?

#discuss #productivity #watercooler #beginners

Do you like to take notes when you're writing code?

Do you organize them in some way, or do you only keep notes about your current tasks?

What pieces of information do you think are helpful to keep track of?

Top comments (59)

Pandita • Mar 23 '22

I normally take notes on Obsidian: my to-dos, daily reflection, meetings notes, definitions and so on.

If I'm extremely and highly stressed out I start to brain-dump everything on paper. For me, it feels like I'm moving things from my brain to somewhere else and I can see it much clearly than with my computer.

I feel that for my brain, the computer is just an extension of itself, but paper? nope, it's a place to vomit feelings/thoughts/ideas/etc 😂 I think this is due to my teen years where I would draw a lot. Every idea, thought, feeling was set on paper and promptly forgotten hahaha

Adam Davis • Mar 23 '22

I don't know the last time I've resorted to using paper, but sometimes if I need to sketch some diagrams out with my Wacom tablet

Do you like Obsidian? How does it compare to Notion?

Pandita • Mar 23 '22

aah I wouldn't be a good person to ask regarding Notion vs Obsidian because I was never properly able to use Notion! it would distract me more than I actually using it hahaha I would make pretty dashboards one day and the other? eeeeh I wouldn't do anything with it.

Obsidian sorta allows me to create and use all my creativity without distracting me. It really does help me focus on writing rather than "designing my dashboard to be aesthetic" 😂

Adam Davis • Mar 23 '22

Ah, gotcha. I guess I haven't delved too deep into what Notion can do, since I didn't realize it was possible to spend that much time making things look better haha

I mostly use it for writing my blog posts and keeping a schedule of when I'm going to publish things

Pandita • Mar 23 '22

I suggest a small search in pinterest for notion 😂

I use obsidian mostly for work, to handle my work planning. My personal obsidian is more for jotting down things I don't want to forget or saving information or thoughts about subjects I'm interested in, not so much for planning (I do a little bit for non code projects). I use paper planners for weekly home planning since I really like my stickers and washi tape :3

Abelardus • Mar 24 '22

Would you happen to know the difference between Obsidian and Evernote?

Im just starting to take notes but insured about what tool is best.

Thanks!

Pandita • Mar 25 '22

Hi, sorry for the late reply!

I actually decided on Obsidian as a replacement for Evernote :surprised: I used Evernote a lot to take notes, I really liked the editor and the notebook organization they have going on but the discoverability of whatever I wrote down wasn't as good, or at least I wasn't really good at it. I also didn't like how it was a web app that would limit the access to my notes unless I paid (or logged out constantly and I'm more of a remember me type of gal). I don't have that trouble with Obsidian because my notes belong to me and are in my computer (I should link it to a git repo though, but for now it's fine), I pay for the sync between my phone and computer and that's it. I don't depend on a 3rd party in this case!

Also, Obsidian has a really nice, supportive and helpful community! I really suggest looking for beginner resources because when you open Obsidian for the first time you'll feel like looking at a blank paper! so many possibilities xD

But, the only way to find out if a platform is for you is to test it out! that's how I know if something works or not for me c:

ericz • Mar 24 '22 • Edited

Not OP, but have used both.

Notion is your 'use-however-you-want' software, and you can practically customize it in anyway that you see fit. You can soure your stuff from different databases, linked into one dashboard, table, kanban, or calendar view

Obsidian on the other hand is a very streamlined note taking app. But despite of, it does a really good job of linking references to what you're currently working on without getting distracted.

EDIT: Ohh OP beat me to the "getting distracted" part 😅

Tina Huynh • Mar 24 '22

I have been looking into Obsidian. It looks like a wonderful application to start using.

Pandita • Mar 25 '22

it is!! it can also send you through a personal knowledge management rabbit hole which is an experience I personally really enjoyed 😂

Jeremy Friesen • Mar 23 '22

When writing code, my notes are my code, tests, comments, commit messages, and issue tracker. If that's inadequate for "thinking", I'll step away and either grab pen and paper or start an org-roam node to begin thinking by writing.

My default fallback for any note taking is my personal knowledge management tool (org-roam).

Kaushal Joshi • Mar 24 '22

Can you please share a small piece of your notes as reference? This sounds helpful...

Jeremy Friesen • Mar 24 '22

Absolutely.

Communicating via PR with Benchmarks and intentions

The following PR is an example of some notes I took regarding performance as well as minor refactoring.

Removing instance variable and before action #16954

jeremyf posted on Mar 21, 2022

What type of PR is this? (check all applicable)

[x] Refactor

Description

There is no reason to create an instance variable as we don't pass this to the view. Further, by adding this as a before_action there's a disconnect in logic.

This commit attempts to address those issues.

What follows is a three-fold change:

Removing the before action (let's just call the method)
Reworking the method to reduce, just a bit, the method cost
Removing an unused instance variable

Here are the benchmarks. Note the "follows_limit" as written below is the "Proposed" route.

require 'benchmark'

def follows_limit_original(params:, default: 80, max: 1000)
  per_page = (params[:per_page] || default).to_i
  @follows_limit = [per_page, max].min
end

def follows_limit(params:, default: 80, max: 1000)
  return default unless params.key?(:per_page)
  per_page = params[:per_page].to_i
  return max

  per_page
end

def follows_limit_alt(params:, default: 80, max: 1000)
  per_page = params.fetch(:per_page, default).to_i
  return max if per_page > max
  per_page
end

TIMES = 10_000
Benchmark.bmbm do |b|
  b.report("Original no params") { 1000.times { follows_limit_original(params: {}) } }
  b.report("Original less than max") { 1000.times { follows_limit_original(params: {per_page: 90 }) } }
  b.report("Original greater than max") { 1000.times { follows_limit_original(params: {per_page: 9000 }) } }
  b.report("Proposed no params") { 1000.times { follows_limit(params: {}) } }
  b.report("Proposed less than max") { 1000.times { follows_limit(params: {per_page: 90 }) } }
  b.report("Proposed greater than max") { 1000.times { follows_limit(params: {per_page: 9000 }) } }
  b.report("Alt no params") { 1000.times { follows_limit_alt(params: {}) } }
  b.report("Alt less than max") { 1000.times { follows_limit_alt(params: {per_page: 90 }) } }
  b.report("Alt greater than max") { 1000.times { follows_limit_alt(params: {per_page: 9000 }) } }
end

$ ruby /Users/jfriesen/git/forem/bench.rb
Rehearsal -------------------------------------------------------------
Original no params          0.000403   0.000002   0.000405 (  0.000405)
Original less than max      0.000109   0.000005   0.000114 (  0.000114)
Original greater than max   0.000161   0.000006   0.000167 (  0.000166)
Proposed no params          0.000076   0.000001   0.000077 (  0.000076)
Proposed less than max      0.000114   0.000009   0.000123 (  0.000126)
Proposed greater than max   0.000112   0.000011   0.000123 (  0.000123)
Alt no params               0.000104   0.000007   0.000111 (  0.000114)
Alt less than max           0.000113   0.000009   0.000122 (  0.000122)
Alt greater than max        0.000111   0.000001   0.000112 (  0.000115)
---------------------------------------------------- total: 0.001354sec

                                user     system      total        real
Original no params          0.000108   0.000000   0.000108 (  0.000110)
Original less than max      0.000109   0.000001   0.000110 (  0.000111)
Original greater than max   0.000109   0.000000   0.000109 (  0.000109)
Proposed no params          0.000071   0.000000   0.000071 (  0.000071)
Proposed less than max      0.000103   0.000001   0.000104 (  0.000103)
Proposed greater than max   0.000102   0.000000   0.000102 (  0.000103)
Alt no params               0.000093   0.000000   0.000093 (  0.000093)
Alt less than max           0.000103   0.000000   0.000103 (  0.000104)
Alt greater than max        0.000102   0.000000   0.000102 (  0.000103)

Related Tickets & Documents

Related to forem/forem#16913, forem/forem#16942

QA Instructions, Screenshots, Recordings

This is a noop change.

UI accessibility concerns?

None.

Added/updated tests?

[x] No, and this is why:

[Forem core team only] How will this change be communicated?

[x] I will share this change internally with the appropriate teams

View on GitHub

Note taking to understand a new-ish concept

The following DEV post is my note taking to learn.

Further Into Emacs with Pcase, Backquotes, and Commas

Jeremy Friesen ・ Mar 16 ・ 3 min read

#emacs #orgmode #todayilearned

Adding Documentation to Help Me Code

This PR is solely about improving my editor experience by adding documentation.

Adding inline documentation #16955

jeremyf posted on Mar 21, 2022

What type of PR is this? (check all applicable)

[x] Documentation Update

Description

While exploring the DashboardsController, I came across method calls to not_found. Idiomatically, I assumed that these methods were returning a value. However, in looking at the code, it raises an exception.

Note: I excpect methods that raise exceptions, especially as the only thing they do, to end in a !.

By adding the documentation my "IntelliSense" provides insight into the expected behavior of this function (e.g. "Raises an exception"). Without the documentation, I don't see any useful information.

With Inline Docs

The "proposed" state:

Without Inline Docs

The "prior" state.

Related Tickets & Documents

Related Issue #forem/forem#16913 (but only in the "I'm in the neighborhood looking at things kind of way").

QA Instructions, Screenshots, Recordings

None.

UI accessibility concerns?

None.

Added/updated tests?

[x] No, and this is why: It's a documentation only PR.

[Forem core team only] How will this change be communicated?

[x] I will share this change internally with the appropriate teams

View on GitHub

Personal Note-Taking in my Dailings

Below is a screenshot of my high-level notes from 2022-03-24. I use these notes to help me remember what I worked on the day before.

The following screenshot shows a calendar overview, I can use that to select the specific date.

And the final screenshot shows two buffers: "Amy" on the left and backlinks to "Amy" on the right. The right are the headlines of the files that reference Amy. This builds up an ability to navigate a graph of information.

And as I write all of this, I think I have a blog post to consider. Which builds on this DEV post

Harvey Thompson • Mar 24 '22

Before starting with org-mode, I wasn't sure if it was worth learning. Oh my, how wrong I was.

Jeremy Friesen • Mar 24 '22

Yeah, me too.

Adam Davis • Mar 23 '22

I like to keep a small text document of TODO items for my current ticket. If something is particularly complex then I’ll keep my notes saved for future reference, but there’s typically enough details in the ticket or the code / comments that I don’t need my notes after the fact.

Curious to see what other people take notes on and how it helps their coding process.

Brad • Mar 23 '22

I basically do this, but update/reply/edit the original ticket so if I were to get shifted to another task, someone else can leverage any notes/information I took.

Or if in the future I need to go back over the same ticket everything is in the same place, for me or whoever.

Adam Davis • Mar 23 '22

That's a good point. Need to make sure enough information is there for someone who may work on it later

Sall • Mar 24 '22 • Edited

I used many tools, techniques until I tried github.com/xwmx/nb and learned how to automate and integrate. It became my all-in-one tool which do anything, anytime, and anywhere also has scheduled workflows and is integrated with multiple services like GitHub, Jira, etc.

Adam Davis • Mar 24 '22

That's pretty cool. I hadn't heard of that tool before

Sall • Mar 24 '22 • Edited

Important to identify your needs and plan far ahead before choosing the services (as there is so many). The tool is not the most important part, but makes life a lot easier when the tool is right and well known. I recently started the whole organization for Z shell tools and their manager (Z shell is a powerful scripting language as-well). It's in early stage but I am pretty sure it can replace all your current tools and most of OS services. Welcome to use it or participate to make it better :) (Need support small and complex tasks).

z.digitalclouds.dev
github.com/z-shell

dgloriaweb • Mar 24 '22 • Edited

I use Jira, however I don't think it couldn't be better. All my notes go into the backlog, as a subtask or as a comment. Every time I feel that I'm done with what I was working on, I return to the task, and read it again, making sure that my change was actually what the task was. So my notes are there, eg. if a flash message is red not green, I won't stop and fix it, I add it to the task as a subtask and continue with the current work. I use notebook (pen and paper) if I have to work out logic. If it's math, I use notebook, if it's flow, I use whiteboard and take a picture.

Adam Davis • Mar 24 '22

That's a good point about adding subtasks. I definitely need to get better about that, since it's so easy to start fixing a bunch of small things that I come across

Jon Randy 🎖️ • Mar 24 '22 • Edited

Handwritten notes on my reMarkable tablet - one of the best things I ever bought

Adam Davis • Mar 24 '22

What else do you use it for? I've looked into getting one before, but I don't know if I'd use it enough to justify the price

Jon Randy 🎖️ • Mar 24 '22

It handles PDFs way better than a Kindle, so I use it for reading stuff too. I used to go through an awful lot of paper taking notes, but this is much easier to manage

Adam Davis • Mar 24 '22

I occasionally read PDFs on my Kobo (an e-reader that's pretty similar to a Kindle) but haven't done it in a while since it doesn't handle them super well. I can see how I'd probably take more notes while reading if I could write directly on the document

Jon Randy 🎖️ • Mar 24 '22

You can indeed write directly on the document

Lucia Cerchie • Mar 23 '22

When there's a long command idiosyncratic to a codebase I actually throw it in my Slack messages to myself -- avoids multiplication of apps.
I should figure out how to alias these though-- any good resources?

Adam Davis • Mar 23 '22

I think I'd probably use Slack in that way if my company didn't have messages set to auto-delete after a certain amount of time

If you have idiosyncratic commands that are really common in a codebase, it might be helpful to create a development.md file for quick reference

Lucia Cerchie • Mar 23 '22

That's a great idea!

FJones • Mar 23 '22

I tend to have a scripts folder in my home dir, usually set up as executables with references to the working dir if needed. Shell aliases if they're more common.

Just5MoreMinutes • Mar 23 '22

I always take notes or write down my TODO-list when coding. I like to use Trello (trello.com) because of it's simplicity and nice features. If I'm working on a smaller project, I like to make little notes on post-its and stick them on the edges of my screen. That often results in a quite weird looking screen setup, but at least I got an overview of everything :)

Stephane Paquet • Mar 23 '22

It depends on the nature of the note.
When the note is intended to be shared I will just write it in the code using an highlighter tool to make sure it's visible. This way the notes can be quickly shared with my peers.
When it's a note that require discussion: Notion
When it's a note for me, I will drop it in my Notion note section.

Jesse Meek • Mar 30 '22

I use CodeLingo Notebooks for code notes.

It's like Notion for devs. It's a web doc with markdown formatting, but you can insert "blocks" that integrate with editors and VCS hosts (e.g. github): here's a video demo:

I mainly use code snippets that you can click on to locate the code in your editor again. So you can literally navigate the codebase with your notes.

For example, if I'm touching several bits of code across the repo, I go back to the note to remind myself what the next step was, click on the snippet and it loads the exact bit of code up for me in my editor.

It's got a bunch of other features on top, chatting with your team on a snippet, applying a patch etc.

Full disclosure, CodeLingo Notebooks is my own project so I'm obviously biased but I can honestly say I can't imagine coding without it now. Super keen to hear people's thoughts.

Happy Coding 😊

AlexisFinn • Mar 30 '22

Don't usually take notes just to myself.
1- If it concerns the functionality it should be add to the ticket
2- If it's a todo-list of things I need to do on my current ticket add it to the commit message
3- If it's something technical concerning the code it should be documented in the source-code
4- If it concerns architecture, how to install/run, add it to the repository README

Diego (Relatable Code) • Mar 23 '22

I use notion, I write some cheatsheet type things down and maybe some key interactions. I try to keep it at a bare minimum.

Mostly try to focus on actually trying to implement what I'm studying so it sticks more. At least thats whats worked for me.

Utkarsh736 • Mar 27 '22 • Edited

I don't take notes anymore as it wasn't helping me but rather taking up a lot of my time.
I just try to practice the concept in code and look to alter it to grasp a better understanding.
If there is a point that I always seem to forget or find myself googling it repeatedly then I note that point down just anywhere(don't usually read it again) but just writing it makes me remember it.

Also, if it is a tutorial type project then I add simple comments for me to understand later.

FJones • Mar 23 '22 • Edited

Transient notes go into Slack, open strands in code go into TODO-tagged comments (thanks JetBrains for letting me find them easily!), and more persistent notes go into a root-level TODO/README, our wiki, or as a printout on the whiteboard.

Relevant personal notes just get dumped onto the desktop, with cleanup every year or so during business downtime.

For development sketches and so on, I just go pen&paper. Usually have a small A6 booklet with me for that purpose, and scribble down ideas and plans while sitting on the deck.

Harvey Thompson • Mar 24 '22

I use Emacs' org-mode - which is essentially a text file (similar to markdown) but with more dynamic abilities: tables, todo lists, tree like organization, code blocks (that can be executed and pipelined).

Each project has such a file, and it's versioned with Git or Perforce. This is the most part: versioning and switching between projects is fairly easy.

For large projects, even if the company uses something like Jira, I'll still keep notes and Jira links in this file, so I can list which bugs or tasks I'm working on - often I'll get interrupted or have to fix something quickly, so it really helps with context switching.

View full discussion (61 comments)

DEV Community

How do you take notes while you code?

Top comments (59)

Communicating via PR with Benchmarks and intentions

Removing instance variable and before action #16954

What type of PR is this? (check all applicable)

Description

Related Tickets & Documents

QA Instructions, Screenshots, Recordings

UI accessibility concerns?

Added/updated tests?

[Forem core team only] How will this change be communicated?

Note taking to understand a new-ish concept

Further Into Emacs with Pcase, Backquotes, and Commas

Jeremy Friesen ・ Mar 16 ・ 3 min read

Adding Documentation to Help Me Code

Adding inline documentation #16955

What type of PR is this? (check all applicable)

Description

With Inline Docs

Without Inline Docs

Related Tickets & Documents

QA Instructions, Screenshots, Recordings

UI accessibility concerns?

Added/updated tests?

[Forem core team only] How will this change be communicated?

Personal Note-Taking in my Dailings

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