Ask HN: Do you keep a programmer journal? If so what do you document and how?

4 pointshrayr2 comments

I've been thinking of keeping a journal for a long time, I've had many false starts. If you keep one, how does it benefit you?

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Every time it takes more than 10 minutes to solve a bug, describe the problem in your journal. When you eventually fix the bug, describe what went wrong, how you found the bug and how you fixed it. If you can't explain precisely what caused the bug, you haven't solved it yet.

As you build up a collection of mistakes and their solutions, start treating your journal like a checklist. When you encounter a new, unknown problem, review your journal- do any of the symptoms seem familiar? Any strategies you can try again?

That's a great use case, thanks. Do you keep one? If so, how often do you find yourself going back and finding a solution from your journal? I feel a lot of my bugs are one-offs, maybe I'm not seeing a pattern because I'm not documenting them properly?

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