Comment by samsquire | Hacker News Reader

Comment by samsquire | Hacker News Reader

I journal computer and software ideas as markdown files out in the open on GitHub. When I get to 100-300 entries I move onto a new repository.

https://GitHub.com/samsquire/ideas https://GitHub.com/samsquire/ideas2 https://GitHub.com/samsquire/ideas3 https://GitHub.com/samsquire/ideas4 https://GitHub.com/samsquire/startups

I create a new markdown heading for each entry and write.

It's searchable and the data is easy to synchronize, backup and use and the solution shall last for multiple decades maybe even longer.

It's also indexed by Google.

I'm still tweaking my first journal that I created in 2013.

At one point I tried to love Emacs and I am yet to use org mode. I actually use the GitHub interface mostly to update my journal. And before that vim and lately IntelliJ which includes preview features.

I would recommend if you want to write notes or create an external mind to improve your thinking just write. The tool you use doesn't really matter. It's the quality and reward from writing and rereading what you wrote.

I started by putting stuff on my professional website. Too much overhead and styling kept me from writing:

https://lancebachmeier.com/other.html

Then I moved to GH pages and a simple theme, so that I could type directly in the browser on any device:

https://bachmeil.github.io/online-writing/

There was still too much styling on that page for my taste. The full CSS for my new site is

body { max-width: 950px; margin: auto; padding: 8px;} pre { border: 1px solid gray; border-radius: 6px; padding: 8px; }

That feels more natural to me. Site here:

https://bachmeil.github.io/the-blog/

> I would recommend if you want to write notes or create an external mind to improve your thinking just write.

Agreed. Personally, I still use paper + pencil for a lot of things. Even if I never rustle through my stacks of notes to find it again, I already got a big chunk of the value from just writing it.

Aside: I find rustling through my notes to be useful in itself, even though it's inefficient on the surface. Electronic systems are so good at finding exactly what you want as quickly as possible that the "browse around and see what you bump into" experience can get lost.

Sometimes I'll just happen to see diagram X next to diagram Y and come up with a new insight, where if I only ever saw what I was specifically looking for, I'd lose that. Though I do waste a lot of time, too (:

I reread my journal to try come up with new ideas. I think explaining your problem can reveal solutions. Rubber ducking.

My stack of paper drawings and diagrams and notes was thrown away by accident. So I only have my digital notes left.

As it was for Richard Feynman, writing is thinking itself.

What is the benefit of moving on to a new repository? It's not like Git would have a performance problem with thousands of small text files, and it's just as easy to organize (actually much easier) within a single root than within multiple roots.

I am adding to my journal every day.

If someone checks my journal on Monday, unless they scroll to the bottom to check for new journal entries on Tuesday, they shall miss the journal entries I added Tuesday. (Unless they come back but I feel I have one chance to gain a regular reader)

I submit to HN when I reach a new batch of 100-300 entries.

I don't want people to not see the new entries.

I only tweak or add to older journal repositories, I don't add new entries to the bottom of those repositories.

Hunh??? (Also, why would anyone want to read anyone else’s personal journal, I mean, I guess if you were Donald Trump it might be “interesting”. But if there were more than, like, three of these that I followed, I’d be reading personal journals more than doing anything else. I barely have time to follow podcasts that drop once a month, much less the random musings of random hackers.)

I see my journal of ideas as a blog. I just happen to use GitHub and it is formatted as a journal.

I am always looking for high quality things to read. So I'm interested in other people's blogs such as Joel on Software or Jeff Atwood or Joe Duffy.

If you don't find it interesting then you are not the intended audience.

Oh. I see. Yes, framing this as using GitHub as a (micro)blogging platform makes it make much more sense (at least to me).

Your submissions have all been marked as spam and no-one ever saw them (they're all [dead]).

I think it's because you put a number in your titles so they all looked like blog spam articles '100 ways to improve you sex life'

Do you get paid every time the word "idea" appears on the page?

Interesting process, though.

thanks

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