From: Daniel Clemente <n142857@gmail.com>
To: John Hendy <jw.hendy@gmail.com>
Cc: emacs-orgmode <emacs-orgmode@gnu.org>,
Marcin Borkowski <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl>
Subject: Re: org-mode for knowledge management
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2014 18:36:23 +0700 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <87oatihm88.wl-n142857@gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CA+M2ft-xtxaYZyYN8+AP7h1CrcLG5_XRPvaH3aoUO3nKMVNO6g@mail.gmail.com>
El Fri, 10 Oct 2014 16:48:39 -0500 John Hendy va escriure:
>
> On Fri, Oct 10, 2014 at 10:46 AM, Daniel Clemente <n142857@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > I've been using org-mode for a variety of purposes for a few years. I find
> >> > that it suffers from the same problem that other such tools do. The
> >> > problem is me. I can't remember week to week how I may have classified
> >> > some scrap of information. Did I drop it into notes/someproduct.org or was
> >> > it procedures/someprocess.org?
> >
> > 1. Every information should have a single location, not two. Mix sections fast
> > if you detect repetitions. Use links extensively (C-c l) to connect one header
> > with another, specially after you get lost once. Don't bother too much about
> > finding the right place at the first time, you'll eventually reorder or move
> > headers to the correct place.
>
> I'm curious about this. Is this a well-known recommendation/best
> practice?
I find it it similar to the „Don't repeat yourself“ principle. But I was just explaining my experience.
> I actually struggle with this a great deal. Often a bit of
> research or testing for a specific project at work is very possibly
> relevant to any number of future projects. So, working in product
> development, I find it hard to decide what the best "single location"
> is, and would love for it to act as though it were in multiple
> locations.
>
> When the current project is done, I'd like to archive everything
> specifically related to it while keeping around the general knowledge
> I've accumulated for use with future efforts.
I use no tags or categories, just a clear and manual separation of concepts. E.g. it's not the same activity „I'm learning about database X“ and „I'm considering database X for project Y“, because notes from the first one go to Databases.org and notes from the second one to ProjectY.org. Clocking is different (even if I'm learning about X, I clock in Y if I'm doing it as part of a project).
Therefore I try to keep project notes at a minimum, because they are dated and ephimeral, whereas the general knowledge accumulates in other files (one file per topic, encyclopedia-style).
>
> Or is this what you mean by using links? Are you just saying that
> individuals should not be copying the same text around in multiple
> places?
>
Of course copy+paste is a nightmare to maintain (see: DRY). I am still forced to do it with some org tables which do complex calculations. I think org offers dynamic tables to apply the same process to different data sources, but it gets complex. I think there's no such thing as „templates“ where you change the base one and all uses of it (in all files) are automatically updated.
About links: in org-mode they all look the same, but semantically there are many types, like:
- *is-a*: „this is a concrete implementation of [[that generic knowledge]]“
- *related*: „related to this is: [[that]]“
- *same-as*: „this and [[that]] are exactly the same topic, so write only under that header, not here“ ← this is poor man's transclusion, or more like „symbolic links“ in ext4. With it, a header seems to be present in many places at the same time; in reality the content is only in one place and the rest are links. The good thing is, it doesn't really matter /where/ exactly is that tree, because you'll find it anyway by following maximum 1 link. X can link to Y, or Y can link the X; what's important is that reading both X or Y you'll find exactly the same thing (not copy+pasted contents).
So, it's all about finding a manual algorithm to organize things.
Daniel
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2014-10-11 11:36 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 25+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2014-10-09 22:17 org-mode for knowledge management Louis
2014-10-09 23:54 ` Marcin Borkowski
2014-10-10 15:46 ` Daniel Clemente
2014-10-10 21:40 ` mbork
2014-10-10 21:48 ` John Hendy
2014-10-11 2:53 ` Eric Abrahamsen
2014-10-12 4:54 ` John Hendy
2014-10-13 2:42 ` Eric Abrahamsen
2014-10-13 3:15 ` Daniel Clemente
2014-10-13 5:17 ` Samuel Wales
2014-10-14 3:47 ` Daniel Clemente
2014-10-14 1:14 ` Eric Abrahamsen
2014-10-11 11:36 ` Daniel Clemente [this message]
2014-10-11 19:45 ` Brady Trainor
2014-10-12 4:29 ` Daniel Clemente
2014-10-12 5:03 ` John Hendy
2014-10-12 7:48 ` Daniel Clemente
2014-10-14 2:14 ` John Hendy
2014-10-10 0:18 ` Thomas S. Dye
2014-10-10 2:32 ` Louis
2014-10-10 2:34 ` Louis
2014-10-13 19:29 ` Louis
2014-10-13 19:36 ` Thomas S. Dye
2014-10-13 23:10 ` Louis
2014-10-13 13:11 ` Brett Viren
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