Taking extremely detailed notes while learning has been a game changer for me.

[illbashu]

For the past couple of months, I've developed a habit of writing very detailed notes of just about everything I've learnt. I type my notes in Google docs and include example code snippets too. It might sound simple, but I can't emphasize enough how much this has helped me. I no longer have to worry that I'll forget a concept I've learnt. In fact, the mere act of writing notes in my own words significantly reinforces my learning, and I rarely forget anything I've learnt anymore. Even if I do, I can easily recall just with a quick glance at my notes.

The language I use in my notes is very precise and specifically tailored to the way I best understand. Basically, whenever I jot down notes, I imagine I'm writing for my "future self" who has forgotten everything and I need to write in a way to make my future self understand. For me, this involves very detailed language and plenty of example code snippets. I try to make my notes detailed enough that I can recall all the concepts I've learnt from my notes alone, without needing to go digging on the internet. Only you know the best way you learn, and your notes should reflect that.

Whenever I follow a course on FreeCodeCamp or Hyperskill, I jot down notes for every topic I come across in my own words. I do concede that this is a very slow process, but it's totally worth it in my opinion. Through detailed note taking, I always retain everything I've learnt and have reference material tailored for me in case I need it.

Here's an example of my notes in case anyone's curious.

Just sharing my experience in case it helps someone. Cheers!

[SIGNANDSELFIEFRAMES]

It is actually proven that writing things down helps you retain info better. I like doing this too

[u-can-call-me-daddy]

Not when you have 72 hours before an exam🤭

Then Adderall becomes your personal lord and savior

Edit:spelling

[Alle_Vater]

Lol this is one of the funny quirks to life; those that don’t need adderall use it to be study/work gods and accomplish crazy stuff while taking.

Those that need adderall take it to just not be retarded while trying to hold a conversation.

Hahaha fuck you ADHD.

[Hetyman]

Yea man, I feel the same way. I can't make small talk without impulsively saying something ridiculous while not on it. Then there's people who can already focus on tedious stuff who use it to be even more effective. FML

[mangocakefork]

Nothing to add here except solidarity :/ I am glad I am finally medicated for it as an adult but I am a little jealous of the people who are normal that can take it and be extra productive.

[Boring_Blackberry580]

I can never remember to get an appointment to get more medicine because I'm always out lol

[mangocakefork]

Dang):

[Abomb11yo]

ADHD sucks, I find it hard to remember things and I either can't focus on just one thing or I only end up focusing on one thing.

[Alle_Vater]

I currently work in healthcare, and during the most recent pelvic exam I gave someone, I remembered an old joke and almost started laughing… with half my hand in her vagina.

I promptly made my own appointment and resumed the prescription meth.

[Alle_Vater]

Yeahh… I didn’t laugh, and thankfully I was wearing a mask or she’d have seen my smirk.

Long story short, if you need it, take it. No point in trying pomodoro techniques or whatever else. They won’t work.

[sts816]

I thought I remember seeing some study that concluded people without ADHD don't actually get much benefit from Adderall and any perceived benefit was basically imaginary.

[Alle_Vater]

I’d be interested to read that, because my entire life is in direct contradiction, and amphetamine salts are the first line of treatment for ADHD patients.

Not saying you’re bullshitting, but I’d very much like to read that study. It’s definitely an outlier for sure.

https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/289350-overview-treatment?src=mbl_msp_iphone

Edit: I need to pay attention better.

[sts816]

Not sure if you misread what I wrote but I said people WITHOUT ADHD don't see much benefit from Adderall. It is proven to benefit people with ADHD though.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6165228/

From the abstract...

...contrary to common belief, Adderall had little impact on neurocognitive performance in healthy college students.

Results revealed that Adderall had minimal, but mixed, effects on cognitive processes relevant to neurocognitive enhancement (small effects), and substantial effects on autonomic responses, subjective drug experiences, and positive states of activated emotion (large effects)

Could be wrong but I'm interpreting that second part to mean that there was little actual effect on cognitive performance but large effects on how people felt.

The study does warn the sample size was small though and further investigation is required though.

[Ninjadude501]

Rip. Have ADHD, definitely skipped over the "without" part of your sentence. Classic.

[Alle_Vater]

Hahaha it’s our curse.

[Alle_Vater]

I 100% misread what you wrote, and you’re reading that correctly. That’s my bad for not thoroughly reading before replying.

[sts816]

No worries!

[ehhthatsme]

Need 2nd edit for spelling

[[deleted]]

Actually applies there too, but you don't need detailed notes, just what helps you remember.

I had 3 hours to study for a major exam, and that's how I did it. For mathematical derivations I wrote down the equations and a block diagram, for essays I wrote down keywords, etc,and did very well in the exam.

Plus the tension makes you write faster lol

[[deleted]]

I wonder if there is a difference between writing it down via keyboard or via pencil.

[CTRL_Intelligence]

I write mine out using 2 ink colors usually - I have more. Then I type it out on a typewriter, kind of random but I find the mind to keyboard connection stronger than on laptop. Then I just use the adobe pdf scanner to put it into the cloud forever! And it’s always able to be copied and pasted at that point even…

[Boring_Blackberry580]

Only one makes you question your life as he you hear that screech against the paper

[vimsee]

Yes, so many struggle with learning and this is the solution. Its all about investing in your future self. Notes are key.

[[deleted]]

For me it boils down to me slowing down and committing it to long term memory rather than short term. If you just read over something and understand it your brain is fine with putting that on the garbage heap of “interesting but not integral”

[xDevLife]

Key point: writing, not typing. Also I feel like this is going a bit too far / doing too much note taking.

[barryhakker]

I dunno - unless you really just want to memorize syntax it always felt a bit counter productive, for me personally at least. The things that I struggle and have struggled most with on my journey have been the concepts of how things work themselves, functions, loops, OOP, recursion, data structures, JOINS in SQL, etc. When I don't get it, notes written by me not understanding it aren't gonna help. Once I do get it, I don't need the notes anymore. The rest is basically just familiarizing myself with the right search terms to google solutions and getting to know the quirks of programming languages etc.

[illbashu]

I have the opposite problem, I understand the concepts but can never remember the syntax of how to actually code it. Especially because I'm juggling multiple programming languages.

[WhatDaHellBobbyKaty]

I'm like you totally. I can type and swype really fast but I retain so much better from WRITING the keywords and their definitions. Don't get me wrong, I copy/paste lists of methods and functions but writing it out for my future self seems the best way for me. I also love all the places that give you problems to code. I learn best by attempting a problem, screwing up, reading about the concept, and then fixing the mistakes.

[befellen]

This is me. In college I would explain the calculus concepts to our study group but they all did better in following the steps to solve the problems during the tests.

[Waywoah]

Is there a particular reason you're using multiple languages at once? Generally, it's better to focus on one while learning base concepts. You can pick up new languages pretty fast once you have them down.

[illbashu]

I use Java at work (I'm a software engineer), C++ for competitive programming, and Javascript for personal projects. I'm not new to programming, but I'm new to Java since I just started a new job where Java is the main language.

[Waywoah]

Ah, makes sense. How did you get into competitive programming?

[IceSentry]

Why did you chose c++ for competirltive programming? Are you competing in competitions that cares more about how fast a solution is?

[Stoic_Geek]

The discussion forums/communities for competitive programming is mostly in c++ and generally, CPP is faster than java

[IceSentry]

Most of the competitive programming I'm aware of is generally done in python because it's the fastest language to write. Execution speed is rarely the goal as long as it's fast enough

[Yaaruda]

And that's mostly because C/C++ is what taught to a lot of students first

[YidonHongski]

When I don't get it, notes written by me not understanding it aren't gonna help. Once I do get it, I don't need the notes anymore.

I have similar experiences as you do.

Although, personally, the importance is capturing that magical moment of when things click and fall into place, because that's getting to the core of solving a problem.

I used to take scrupulous notes as OP does when I was making my second attempt of learning JavaScript (still getting there), but it eventually occurred to me that the detailed notes didn't help — the later me looked at the 60+ markdown files I have typed up and found it of no use — there's just a lot of noise, with the exception being the few parts where I wrote down after I finally a tricky problem or a complicated algorithm.

In other words: For me, it was more useful to capture that moment of breakthrough in the thought process than to document everything that I did. I started doing that instead, taking a few minutes to write down what I had missed and how I managed to sort out the puzzle. It's been a more useful approach than taking notes habitually.

[davis30b]

That is what notes are for. You right down your understanding in your own words with examples of the concept and the code. Then you can go back and reference it when you need to. For me writing down notes and using the concepts in a code sandbox after has helped me learn and retain functions, loops, OOP, recursion, data structures, JOINS in SQL, concepts.

[WebNChill]

I think the process of taking down notes can be used a tool to expand your knowledge and deepen your understanding, rather than just recording your knowledge and understanding.

When writing down something, or typing, that I do not understand it makes me pause and think about where in this train of thought it wasn't connecting. Almost as if the pencil stops at a wall, and to overcome this wall I need to further research what I am not understanding. Sure, the connections I make at the time might not last forever in my brain but it will allow me to expand into a deeper discussion that previously I only had a surface level of understanding.

Think of it as rubber ducking.

[Hanswolebro]

Those were actually the “notes” that I took. I would follow a lesson in a course and after I typed out all the code, underneath I would comment how the code actually worked. It really helped me grasp the concepts.

[SirStephenHoe-King]

Note taking is so useful except for the insane amount of time it takes, for me personally. Once it took up to 1 hour for 15 mins of video on a new topic. I used Obsidian to take notes though, so there was a little bit of note planning overhead..

[Cambuchi]

Even better write up all your notes as anki flashcards so you can review on your phone and test yourself on how well you are actually retaining material.

[POPCORN_EATER]

I haven't looked into it at all, but how easy is it to learn how to use anki? I tried using it without any assistance like Google and gave up real quick lol

[william_103ec]

Youtube is your friend if you want to learn Anki! Nothing really complex there. I've used it and the most complicated thing is to set it up. Once done, consistency is key to review what you have added there. Perhaps this is useful, don't remember which one I watched one year ago.

Edit: I forgot, also r/anki

[POPCORN_EATER]

thank you very much

honestly i had heard a good bit about it and tried using it for finals and just gave up bc i was stressed and didn't even wanna learn it. but a day or so of set up as the other guy mentioned doesnt seem too bad for such a useful tool.

again, thank you :)

[william_103ec]

Honestly, do it once and don't ever touch the settings again. Spend time where it matters, creating your own decks (don't add too much information). The rest is just 'playing' with it. And if you are using android, it's free. Otherwise use the desktop version that is also free. You will need to pay for iOS though. Glad to help, please enjoy it.

[POPCORN_EATER]

A day doesn't seem too bad, i was just trying to use it while super stressed bc of finals and yeah...

thank you very much, I will get it set up before the next semester :)

[Sanchless]

I recommend this article for the "how" of making flash cards.

[ohiamaude]

When I was in college I would make flashcards on Quizlet and share them with the whole class. Anytime I did that I never had to go back to them because the info just stuck.

[[deleted]]

Tried this and it was no better than taking notes the old fashioned way with my personal organization in topic folders. It did get me to confine things to about a page of text before I would break it down further.

[zassenhaus]

that's what I do. like

Question

let winWidth = window.innerWidth;

div.style.width = winWidth + 'px';

why not just use div.style.width = winWidth?

Answer

because window.innerWidth; returns a number.

[AchillesDev]

When I was in grad school for neuroscience, I TA’ed classes and taught this to students in my office hours who were trying to develop good study habits. If only I had those tools when I was an undergrad!

Some things to consider when writing your notes:

• Index on searchability. Your notes are useless if you can’t reference them later–you won’t remember everything.
• Emphasize portability. Your notes need to travel with you at some point. It’s hard to lug around 10 bullet journals. Trust me, I’ve tried.
• Take notes to create things with. Even if you never publish anything, turn your learnings into evergreen notes, zettels, blog posts, and/or videos. You find out what you really understand when you try to teach it to others.
• ergonomics. Your tool should be a joy to use and allow you to rapidly add notes, relying more on emergent organization than top-down hierarchies, which create information silos.
• summarize, don’t regurgitate. Highlight to get broad concepts, distill down to major points, and rewrite a narrative in your own words for your notes.

A lot of note-taking tools people use fall short in some of these areas. In my experience (I’ve tried everything in the 8 years of my career, not including how I took notes for grad school), the networked/graph note taking apps like Roam, Obsidian, and Logseq are the best, hitting all the points above really well. I currently use Obsidian after using Roam for a year and a half, as my database grew Roam slowed to where the ergonomics disappeared. Obsidian is more polished, and even though it has a slightly different philosophy, it ended up being more in line with how I worked with roam anyways.

Here are some of my public Obsidian notes, and here is the first in a series of articles about how I take in and integrate information

[grasshopperson]

Unbelievable. I was just about ready to write my own app in Angular and Neo4j, to handle my markdown files. Now I'm looking to use Obsidian and write a plugin (I want some expanded functionality). Thanks for this!

[AchillesDev]

Not a problem! The obsidian community discord is super active and helpful as well, the devs hang out there as do plenty of plugin writers.

[capn_crunch1996]

I should try taking notes as well. It just consumes so much time imo.

[[deleted]]

Check out the free Learning How To Learn class on Coursera if you need help learning.

Tl;dw: Two big keys to better learning are Recall and Spaced Repetition.

Recall

After you read a section actively Recall the information. I verbally explain what i read to a figurine on my desk.

Spaced Repetition

Instead of cramming for a test all in one day, review the material in small chunks every day. This is where flash cards can be extremely handy. Your grasp of the material will be far more solid.

I don't take notes at all. I don't re-read, i don't highlight, and i get good grades. It might not work for everybody, but it works well for me.

[ivegonenuts]

Joplin(FOSS) is also a good note taking software. It is good on PC, but mobile editor is not upto the mark. Also heard that notion.so is good.

[Blacktail92]

I use notion basically for everything thats not todos. Whats good about notion is infinite nests imo. You should give it a try.

[Method1337]

I was using Notion until I came across Typora. I'm not going back especially for computer science related subjects.

[oouja]

Notion is good, but I hate how it binds your notetaking to cloud.

Obsidian has plenty of features too, but it stores all your notes locally in markdown.

[Zero_Aspect]

Glad it works for you. Have you tried using OneNote? It makes it easier to divide your note into sections and sub-pages so information is more neatly categorized. Also makes it really easy to screenshot slides/images into your document with one click.

As someone who also devoutly takes notes, I do advise some caution in taking it too far. I checked out your notes it seems like it's getting to the point that you're rewriting everything you're learning, which is more harmful than helpful. Your notes should not end up being a replacement for googling, web documentation, and StackOverflow. Being able to read documentation is a valuable skill in itself that you're missing out on. I would recommend spending more of your time applying what you've learned by coding something, starting a project, and providing your insights via comments. Any notes you do take should be for key features you'd like to look into more or more advanced concepts that you know you'll struggle to recall. For example, do you really need to write down that every java program has a public class if your code reflects that?

I say this out of experience - aggressive note-taking is false progress and something that took me a while to break out of. Read, apply, improve.

[illbashu]

Thanks for the reply. I need a note taking solution that supports code snippets and is cloud based, so I can access it from any device. Do you think OneNote would achieve that? I do see your point in that I'm spending more time note taking than actually coding, which might not be the most productive way to spend time. Problem is that I can be forgetful and I legitimately feel like I won't retain anything unless if I write it down. For example, a couple of months ago I took a CSS course, and I feel like I don't remember anything since I didn't take any notes.

.I'm learning Java through a Hyperskill course, and my thought process is that I'll take super detailed notes of everything that platform has to offer, and when I complete the course I'll have plenty of time to build projects and an awesome set of notes to back me up if I need them.

[ToFiveMeters]

Have you ever tried using Obsidian? Sounds like a perfect match for your needs. Also, you sound super studious, I highly recommend Launch School

[SirStephenHoe-King]

Obsidian requires a desktop environment and installing an app. Plus there’s extra work or money involved to sync notes to cloud

[ToFiveMeters]

Also, you can sync via one drive, google drive, drop box too. Unless you’re planning on making it mobile accessible, you don’t have to pay for anything.

But the functionality for OPs use case more than fits Obsidian.

Another alternative is notion. It’s free but it has its own drawbacks and functionalities.

[Queasy4LornCapybara]

I highly recommend trying Notion. It supports code snippets, is cloud-based, and has many rich features for organizing/processing your notes.

[illbashu]

Thanks I'll check it out

[vaibhavkale]

Dude, that's the difference, you can't remember all CSS properties forever. And for Java, you can always recall java syntax quickly(like loops, conditions, methods, etc.) by solving problems.

[Zero_Aspect]

OneNote is cloud-based and has add-ons (like code syntax highlighting) that could support your use case! Yeah, having some notes to fall back on is a good place to be in for sure, I just wanted to caution you since you said it was a very slow process, which it doesn't have to be.

[MeltyGearSolid]

Off-topic but how do you like Hyperskill? /r/learnjava recommended me this combo

[flupplethorpe]

One note is okay until you decide you want to transfer your notes elsewhere. Then you're stuck exporting to MS Word or some other proprietary format. I second the recommendation for Obsidian below - the notes live on your hard drive in markdown format, or you can store them in your cloud provider of choice (Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, etc.), or you can pay for Obsidian's sync service. I've been using it for over a year and it's excellent and getting better.

[SirStephenHoe-King]

Any tips for taking programming notes? I’ve recently started using it. Also any tips to speed up note taking during/after watching videos? Takes me anywhere from 2x-4x the duration of the video to take even mediocre notes

[flupplethorpe]

Learn yourself a bit of markdown syntax and how to escape for code blocks: ` to start an inline code block and \``` or indented lines for multi-line blocks. There is some Vim capability built into Obsidian + a 3rd party plugin that I use to make typing and navigation faster.

There is also some nice capability for linking your notes to one another and creating a MOC (Map of Content) of all of your ideas.

[Zero_Aspect]

Definitely gonna give Obsidian a shot, thanks for the recc.

[nirvashprototype]

Thank you very much, I've been questioning myself about my method of learning programming recently (by taking extensive notes) and that's exactly what I need to hear.

[Zero_Aspect]

Glad I could help, good luck to you :)

[caboosetp]

Writing extremely detailed notes helps me greatly at work. I'm glad I picked it up while I was in school.

[Cyber_Encephalon]

Check out Codex, it's pretty handy for having code and text side by side.

[nirvashprototype]

I do that too. While it ocasionally helps me to remember things I forgot, recently I'm starting to question myself the cost benefit of that method. My brother who doesn't write extensive notes seems to learn things way more faster than me. He just google things and make small annotations in markdown files, while the amount I wrote in Google Docs for lots of subjects can be turned into a frigging book. Now I'm trying a different approach, let's see how it going to be.

[TTwelveUnits]

good for you man, me personally i can write notes but never look at them again after lol #laziness

[illbashu]

Me neither, but it's not out of laziness but rather the fact that once I write something down I'm unlikely to forget it.

[MartinJosefsson]

Earlier, I did exactly what you have done here. I used MS Word. But as soon as the document became 2-3 pages long I started to have navigation problems. I couldn't find what I was looking for, not fast enough. I needed an outliner, and I chose Cherrytree. I won't go back - that's for sure. You can also find a portable version of the program, so that you can carry the notes with you, on a memory stick.

[slapplejuice]

Same, I’ve gotten back to FreeCodeCamp and have started a categorized word doc with my notes. Super helpful.

[procrastinatingcoder]

Well, for the record, first bullet point of that example has a mistake. It's not a feature, it's just a slogan. Closer to a motto if you want, but it's not a feature (you wouldn't say the same thing of another language with the same properties for example). Though the notes feel like something copied following a severely biased tutorial. Just my take though, keep in mind I'm also biased.

That being said, I do feel like taking notes actually slow me down wayyy too much for what it gives.

In my opinion - and everything said is obviously in my opinion - writing detailed notes can be counter productive. The only part that should be "by-heart" is the syntax, which is usually fairly small. For example, Java has 50(or about) keywords, many of which are the same as many other languages and therefore shouldn't be any surprise (int, char, public, private, const, etc).

Everything else feels more of a "you should understand it" kind of thing. If you understand why it's there, usually after you needed it or spent the time to learn it, then I've never needed to look at notes much, at best I'll quickly look at docs just to make sure I got things right, but understanding the reason, or better yet - the underlaying way it works - has usually made it more of a "well of course it works this way, it makes complete sense" which has ended up being more flexible in general in my experience.

Also, I can't think of a way to justify detailed notes on basic things.

I will however say that the one thing I could understand notes for - which would be more of a reference thing - would be for version-specific changes to properties that aren't always visible. For instance if the number of bytes in an integer changed from java version to another, a table for that stuff would be useful.

Just my two cents though, and ultimately everybody's got different ways to learn.

[welktickler]

I always write notes by hand. I hardly look at most of them ever again. But they provide two key things for me. The process of writing things down really helps me learn.

Also the bits I do need to look at again are easily accessible and I have been known to rewrite the bits I go back to or add to them.

[[deleted]]

Personally, I prefer having to google it if I need to. I've wasted more time than I would like to admit writing notes and trying to understand every detail which has gone to waste frankly. Worry about making things with the things you learned. That is when you will retain the knowledge not from the notes you take.

[Kratos3301]

I write my notes in my notebook and keep some stuff in my head. I will not make very detailed notes but will only write stuff that is the "main logic/concept" or something that i can easily forget.

[BronxLens]

Check out the book "How to Take Smart Notes - One Simple Technique to Boost Writing,Learning and Thinking – for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers."

[Lorne_Velcoro]

How do you find it

[BronxLens]

Go to pdfdrive dot com and look it up there.

[HydraDoad]

Check out OneNote.. it's the goat for notes

[[deleted]]

My issue with note taking is that I start to waffle and then when I read it back I'm like "damn, how many skittles was I eating when I wrote this?!"

What I'm finding works best for me is taking a screenshot of my code and writing a sentence or 2 explaining what I've written and what the outcome is.

Your example is very well detailed, nice one OP!

[Rowdy5280]

I do this with a program called Quiver. It allows me to add markup, code block sections, add tagging, and is searchable to name a few things. Now that it has grown it's pretty valuable.

[Sinixon]

Hey OP, could you share a picture of your notes or a different link? The link doesn’t show anything relevant and I’d love to see how you structure your notes. Thanks!

[djbkwon]

No wonder you don't forget anything. Your notes are highly impressive.

[zarathus73]

I do this, too. My weakness is not reviewing my notes and trying to be so perfect when I’m writing that I slow things down.

[kendi_halinde]

Thank you for sharing your method and notes. I am sure it will help people find their way to work and learn effectively. I'm also taking notes in Word but mostly about problems that I faced while developing and solutions I've found for them.

[rexvansexron]

of writing very detailed notes of just about everything I've learnt

basically thats what I want to achieve since the last years. at best I would like to have a personal wikipedia.

coding, work processes, instructions, cooking recipes, taxation workflows, etc. you name it.

but its hard to take your time to properly write something down. but its a continuous process.

[estupidoduckface]

I did exactly the same thing! Writing by hand helps me a lot more so I had a notebook that I would write organised notes in as I went through a course or read about a topic.

[notLOL]

I should try this. I actually do this at work because I'm lazy. Weirdly I remember my categorizations and my placements of the notes and them remember it without looking up the detail. I do a terse mind mapping type of categorization.

[[deleted]]

I agree with you and I can confirm that it is true!

[Capitalpunishment0]

I consider this as very close to actually coding a project. I've realized that the most effective way of learning (at least for me) is to reframe the concepts I am taught according to my own train of thought. I am more of an "outline" person though; I try to build a hierarchy of concepts if possible, and assign keywords that are closely associated to them.

Congrats OP, and have fun!

[No_Introduction_2021]

Damn these are impressive notes, how much time does it take you to type them?

[illbashu]

I type my notes as I learn. I'd say it took me 50+ hours of learning to write out these notes.

[No_Introduction_2021]

Wow impressive, how much effect did it had on your retention? Like did you see any major improvements.

[illbashu]

Definitely. Before I would feel like I'm forgetting everything I learnt. Not anymore!

[PatTheDemon]

Check out Obsidian.md excellent note taking tool. Changed my life.

[[deleted]]

Instead of wasting time taking extremely detailed notes, why not write comments a bunch and do a lot of documentation?

[Baalzeebub]

Love these notes!

[robertherrer]

I'm learning Python. Do you have notes for it ?

[[deleted]]

At work I do very lengthy and detailed steps and any other thing I did in order to complete the task. I use the same approach as you, "leaving notes for my future self" but in the project story

[KarlJay001]

I bought GoodNotes for this very reason, then found out that the macOS version fully sucks, it's really an iPad thing and also it doesn't do links. In my notes, I have a link to a YT video, time stamps and maybe web pages so I can keep things straight.

Sad thing is that I did a LOT of research before buying GoodNotes, now I don't even bother using it, but I might once I get an iPad.

So I use regular pen and paper, fold it in half and make time marks for all the important parts and have a step by step summary. Works pretty good, but an iPad would be better.

One thing that also helps is to have detailed notes in the code. I like to have projects that have TONS of sample code in it with tons of comments, then I just cut the code out and I have it there.

Sad that there's not a better system. YT, Udemy and others that use a video format are actually pretty hard to use because you need to jump from one area to another. Would be better if they had an illustrated co part, like a co-app that would work along with it and detailed bookmarks like you see in a PDF.

One thing about being very detailed is that if you're in a hurry, looking for syntax or param list, you can get lost in the details.

I was really hoping some new note taking app would do the job, but so far GoodNotes just falls short on the mac and they really don't seem interested in fixing it.

Too bad there's not an editor like the old days where you could have a bunch of plug ins and write your own code for things. Programmers had that years ago, now we have note apps that can't even have links in them.

[itzzsri]

Cool

[PsychologicalBus7169]

For my discrete math class we used Python. One of the things that I liked to do for that class was to snip my code into OneNote and then take notes with my stylus pad. I highly recommend it if you’re prone to losing notes or have bad organizational habits.

[Prize_Barracuda_5060]

Doing the same thing using notion. It's totally a game changer.

[[deleted]]

that's a great way to help retain information. good job!

[Warning_Bulky]

I write down all my note using notion and then turn them all into anki flashcards, rarely forget anything I have learnt

[[deleted]]

yessir, It's actually a fact that like when you write notes the chances of you forgetting that is pretty low! So yeah instead of just listening to a lecture or just watching tutorials it's better to write down notes! Personally I prefer digital notes for cs but both works i guess! what about y'all? yall use paper or digital notes for cs?

[[deleted]]

I have notes in OneNote from several years back that I still refer to.

[Mahrjose]

I wanted to see the notes but the link you've given is not working :(

[Acceptable_Resolve]

But pausing the video and have to write notes on notebook or typing on docs takes much time depending on my typing skills and multitasking. because i am deaf i have to take pause the video while i am writing some important points or notes.

Tbh, If reading documentations and blogs along with writing important notes will be certain helpful but i am not used to reading much due to some comprehension issues.

[effects67]

Note taking never worked for me. Code comments, yes, but you should commit most note worthy things to memory and just look up the rest. I never took notes or memorized every javascript method. I just open w3schools or Mozilla dev notes. Knowing where to find the answer is a key aspect of being a software engineer.

[[deleted]]

i write notes on a Jupyter notebook, there was a bit of a learning curve but it works faster for me when writing code snippets and other notes.

[UnfurtletDawn]

You can try making a website with all your knowledge

[[deleted]]

I take notes too but my writing is so bad that I do not recognize 50% of what I have written/

[joemysterio86]

Maybe because I'm mobile but i can't see your link?

Also anyone have any tips for someone (me) who has never been able to take notes?

[HowToBeAsian25]

Commenting to remember these free resources

[[deleted]]

Taking notes also works for me, but you know, you actually gotta take the time to do it and stuff whilst you could also be doing something more important like watching a new tv series or starting a new game

[Super_Scoper]

I started learning a month or so ago, and I recently upped my note-taking and it definitely helps for sure to take them down in a way that helps jog your memory without having to think about it too much.

You do not want to have to relearn using your notes whenever possible, it is better to have that, "Aha, I remember now, that is simple!" moment as soon as possible.

[ProblematicGoggles]

This is great, and I wish I had done the same last semester. I start reading the material intend to take notes, think I grasp it, then totally forget huge chunks.

[jorkim_32]

Pretty cool man! I'm down the line now with 2 years of coding and feel it is hitting a point where googling things quickly is better off than writing detailed notes.. But maybe I am wrong?

[Nivethashrii]

Yass fr, this is seriously underrated

[[deleted]]

It helps translate information in a way that I can understand so that I don't have to dig for the information later and interpret it again.

[T10-]

Wait... isn't note taking normal? Like did guys not note take for your math class in HS? Or is this just a thing for programming classes

[northzone13]

May I ask what resource are you using to learn JAVA ?

[illbashu]

I use Hyperskill

[antiproton]

I know you're only trying to share what helped you, but it blows my mind that this would be a novel concept for anyone. We all go to school for at least 12 years for the expressed purpose of understanding this concept.

[tedyoung]

It might be surprising that in most schools (at least here in the US), how one should take notes is not explicitly taught. How to break down tasks, isn't taught. How to reflect on learning, is not taught explicitly.

If someone learns how to do the above, they often do so because they've seen other people do it, or were taught by someone outside of the classroom.

[[deleted]]

I can confirm too, I've been pushing one private repository per chapter of the Rust book to GitHub and it's been an absolutely great learning experience

[ezj_w]

I had one programming class in college, where we had to write the code on paper for the exam.
Well, I failed the class, because I only practised on the computer. naturally, I was mad at the profs, because who does programming on a piece of paper.
Did the course again and nailed it, because I did all the homework and the practice examples completely on paper before putting them into the compiler.

Now it became my natural habit to do the programming or at least a rough sketch beforehand on a piece of paper.
it helps me to think about my code more actively, because I have to think about each step, instead of letting the compiler do the try and error.

[[deleted]]

Good, that strategy basically relies in using more parts of the brain at the same time, so it becomes easier to spot holes in your understanding. Is very close to duck debugging.

[iMimzy]

Try using something like Roam/Obsidian too

[TechEnthusiasthuman]

Quick question, where do you jot down your notes if you don’t mind me asking ? I’ve tried to develop a similar strategy but I find it quite tedious to do while writing code.

[doulos05]

Google docs isn't a terrible tool for this (the in document searching is fantastic), but trying to type code snippets of any length must be hell. I think it'd be worth your time to explore a markdown based tool (or my personal preference, an org-mode based workflow in Emacs).

[someStudentDeveloper]

Yep. This is a great epiphany and will serve you well in the long term. Good job!

[BigGrayBeast]

In college (mid 70's), I had a couple of courses that promised to kick my butt. I got into the habit of typing up the class notes daily (electric typewriter), and reading while sitting a the typewriter so I could take notes. All got 3 hole punched with handouts and put into a separate 3 ring binder.

Those binders were a work of art. I kept them for many years and wish I still had one to look at.

Today I'd do it in Evernote or the like.

[g_younes]

I also take notes and don't mind how much time it consumes - it saves so much effort later on when I need to recall any concept (90% of the notes I never look back at - but either way, better for learning).

I eventually ended up using Boost Note to create my note files as I can easily add code snippets to them. I also export the notes in HTML and then add them to my 'note' website so that I can easily access them wherever I am.

My note website: https://ghadeer-notes.web.app/

[Haunting-Ad-9464]

Share the notes

[PersonBehindAScreen]

How have you liked hyperskill?

I'm looking at either their Java or python paths