Re: [OT] How do you keep your reference data?

From: Marcelo de Moraes Serpa <celoserpa@gmail.com>
To: Bernt Hansen <bernt@norang.ca>
Cc: Org Mode <emacs-orgmode@gnu.org>
Subject: Re: [OT] How do you keep your reference data?
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 10:50:29 -0600	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <1e5bcefd0911090850q3d4a5487t6159a67f40ce5d81@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <87zl6v8yna.fsf@gollum.intra.norang.ca>

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In the end, what matters is having the date you need. I think that, we are
so used to the document-per-file concept that we often forget that, in the
end, it's all bytes.

Let me elaborate. Having one big file for reference, that is well tagged can
be more efficient and simpler than having several files (maybe one subject
per file, the way I'm doing, like a wiki) and integrates better with the way
org works.

In the end, what matters is finding the data you want, and if you tag it
well, it's easier. In my wiki-like-approach, I don't have any tags, I rely
on rgrep to find relevant words, which works fine, but is not as good in the
organizational sense than correctly tagging a entry and finding by tag
(css,html,rails,etc).

Let's say I have a new CSS hack that I just found out, and I'd like to take
note of it in a place where I could easily find it again whenever I need.

My current workflow when I have something to keep as a reference (long-term
note) is this:
- list wiki pages/remember a relevant wiki "page"
- go to this wiki page or create another one - In this case, the page would
be ~/org/wiki/CSS.og
- create a top-level heading about the specific note and paste it below.
Optionally tag the heading (I haven't been doing this).

With you approach, I could just use remember, and by tagging it with
CSS:HACK:, quicker to input, quicker to find it again (search by tag in the
agenda).

However, something in my mind still prefers keeping files in a directory,
each for a subject. It seems cleaner. Seems like a paradigm to break :)

Thanks,

Marcelo.

On Mon, Nov 9, 2009 at 10:13 AM, Bernt Hansen <bernt@norang.ca> wrote:

> Marcelo de Moraes Serpa <celoserpa@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > I liked your self-contained approach, and I will try implementing it
> > in my workflow. Org does not stop amazing me on how flexible it is :)
> >
> > However, the value of having a wiki is also great IMO. It has a
> > workflow similar to tomboy (each new org file acts as a new tomboy
> > note) I don't have to think too much when creating a wiki page (just
> > type TheNameOfTheSubject.org, save it and begin typing, they are in a
> > central location (a wiki folder) and they are a great place to
> > register knowledge data.
> >
> > I don't know, that might be because I used WikiDPad for a long time on
> > my Windows days and loved its approach (Two things that org lacks as a
> > wiki-system, which is a way to view the wiki in a tree format and
> > automatically create links based on files in the filesystem or
> > camelcase. Not big deal features, but something that could be
> > contributed as a org extension - I would do it if I had the elisp
> > knowledge to do so :))
>
> I used to use a wiki ... but I personally prefer the org->HTML export
> sequence to a wiki.  All of my documents are available in org-mode
> source.
>
> I don't have the need to have multiple users edit the same source (which
> is the whole point of a wiki IMO).  Wiki's have other issues if they are
> world editable - like spam bots and other things which I just didn't
> want to deal with.
>
> I found the org-mode format with export at least as powerful as the
> wiki's I've used.  If you community of people working on the same
> content where some of them don't use org-mode then a wiki probably makes
> sense.
>
> I just don't need it for my workflow.
>
> -Bernt
>
>

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