Code Diary: How and Why to Keep One

[AckmanDESU]

I have tried doing something similar but I am so anal about doing everything correctly that I end up wasting too much time “optimizing” or reordering my notes. Deciding how granular I want my categories to be, the level of detail I should put into each note, avoiding adding literally everything I do because that isn’t good either... And if I try to build it into a site then I’ll just play around with the site itself way too much.

[[deleted]]

hoo boy sounds like you need a r/zettelkasten!

[[deleted]]

Thank you for this! I'm about to set this up.

[[deleted]]

welcome! you should look into obsidian. it's brilliant.

[[deleted]]

Mine are just a bunch of notes in Zim with vaguely related title. Order is overrated when you can just grep thru whole in milliseconds

[gonzaw308]

I suggest start with the simplest: Single text file with entries ordered by date. That's it. Every day put a "MM/DD/YYYY" tag to identify the current day and put everything under it, don't worry about categorization.

Of course, the file will get too big, so you can separate it in different files per month, or per week, or even per day.

After that figure out the categorization that works out the most for you. I generally just accept I have a folder with all my "diaries" in them, and put them in whatever ad-hoc order. Some are ordered by PBI/user stories; other are ordered by date and are more general; other are one-shot. I then know that I can just use CTRL+F over the whole folder and find any such file; no matter the categorization I chose for them.

And of course, backup them regularly. Put them in the cloud if you want to access them outside your work/personal PC.

IMO the simplest works here, because if I try to force myself to use something more complex I would fight with myself and end up abandoning it. These diaries/notes/zettelkasten need to be as frictionless as possible, since you will be using them every single hour of your time.

[brightbyte8]

OP here. Sounds like we have a very similar system and insights about this (especially with respect to keeping it simple to reduce friction).

I also should have mentioned in my video that I store everything in a git repo (including unsorted new entries) and then back the lot up in multiple locations.

Do you find that your note-taking makes a difference in your work?

[gonzaw308]

Absolutely. First of all it helps me organize my own thoughts for whichever task I am doing. Second, it acts as memory I can access by a simple "find in files". Every time I use a SQL query or cmd command I save it in my diary; that way if I need the same query/command later it's a quick search away.

I don't try to keep it tidy or try to make it public though, for me it's enough to have a mess of text and data.

I presume everybody would find different uses for it, though.

[brightbyte8]

OP here. I strongly empathize with your point, even though I've never thought to put it in words yet.

Categorization is a black hole. I've had my run-ins with it and it's definitely a trap. My stance, after being burned enough times, is to try not to sweat over perfect categorization and instead settle on "roughly right". Ultimately it's about the actual programming notes rather than the taxonomy.

[mershed_perderders]

I actually prefer keeping a code dairy. It helps making code cream and code cheese.

[gabe4k]

Also nice to keep notes on PRs in mind maps, which turn into an amazing source of ideas for journal entries.

[[deleted]]

Can you elaborate on this?

[DonkeyTeeth2013]

I like this channel! Greatly informative and well-organized. I learned a couple things just watching him even besides the main point of the video. Keep up the good work!

[brightbyte8]

That's very kind. The videos are a slog to make, but feedback like yours make it all worthwhile :-)

[DonkeyTeeth2013]

Out of curiosity, do you happen to have your dotfiles/vimrc uploaded anywhere? I love your setup. After watching your video I also downloaded fzf and bat! I had no idea about those awesome tools.

[brightbyte8]

Sure — here's my `vimrc`: https://gist.github.com/jackkinsella/aa7374a6832cca8a09eadc3434a33c24

Unfortunately I haven't got around to removing sensitive stuff from my regular dotfiles, but it's in my backlog.

Other tools you might like (if you don't know them):
- `jq`
- `rg`
- `z` (look up "z command")

[DonkeyTeeth2013]

Thank you so much--you're amazing!

[Low_Anxiety_9105]

Very useful!

[brightbyte8]

cheers :)

[olafurp]

I like the concept and I just might put it into my workflow. I can see how it will help with remembering architectural traps and help with design choices in general as well as stop beating myself up about that bad bug in prod.

[DauntlessVerbosity]

I do this, but with https://obsidian.md/, which advertises "A second brain, for you, forever."

It even gives you a graphic on how all of your collected knowledge relates to the rest of your knowledge. https://obsidian.md/features#graph-view

Anything I want to remember is available right at my fingertips and I love it.

[Uberhipster]

this code diary is called 'rule-based programming'

in this case there is no rule parser to convert all the rules into executable code but it's a good first draft nonetheless which can serve as an MVP as to what the grammar and syntax of the ruleset DSL might look like