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I'd like to do my notes in markdown, but as a maths/cs student there's a lot of structure in the data (proofs, lemmas, intermezzos, sidenotes) that would be los

I'd like to do my notes in markdown, but as a maths/cs student there's a lot of structure in the data (proofs, lemmas, intermezzos, sidenotes) that would be lost should I go down (eheh) the markdown route. I've been using Pollen [1] (you can think of it as LaTeX for web programmable in Racket and without cool typesetting, so yeah, not like LaTeX at all), but I wouldn't mind something more elegant and readable in plain text. How do you (would you, did you) take your notes in college? [1] http://pollenpub.com http://pollenpub.com

bhl 8y ago
Last semester when I had a course where scribing for notes was required, I would first write down everything in pen and paper. And then transcribe them into LaTeX with Overleaf. This two part process was pretty effective: get the basic ideas first, then look for extra resources as supplements and then combine them together into a single note.
ohithereyou 8y ago
My notes in college followed this route. I would take notes during lecture with pen on paper - less distracting, less likely to go wrong, lighter, and battery life was not a concern. (Today, I would likely take notes with a stylus on a tablet.) When I sat down to revise my notes, part of that revision was to type them up in Emacs with org-mode, using embedded LaTeX for any notation that was not natively supported in org-mode. I would frequently already have typed notes from my readings, and I could integrate the lecture notes with these. I would render to PDF and print these out for further study away from the computer. Part of the reason for this is that I found having access to the Internet and my collection of computer games was distracting when I was trying to study. Being able to print out the notes, share them with friends, study without having to haul around a laptop, find power, or navigate with a keyboard in the silent study floor of the library was important.

bhl 8y ago

Last semester when I had a course where scribing for notes was required, I would first write down everything in pen and paper. And then transcribe them into LaTeX with Overleaf. This two part process was pretty effective: get the basic ideas first, then look for extra resources as supplements and then combine them together into a single note.

ohithereyou 8y ago

My notes in college followed this route. I would take notes during lecture with pen on paper - less distracting, less likely to go wrong, lighter, and battery life was not a concern. (Today, I would likely take notes with a stylus on a tablet.) When I sat down to revise my notes, part of that revision was to type them up in Emacs with org-mode, using embedded LaTeX for any notation that was not natively supported in org-mode. I would frequently already have typed notes from my readings, and I could integrate the lecture notes with these. I would render to PDF and print these out for further study away from the computer. Part of the reason for this is that I found having access to the Internet and my collection of computer games was distracting when I was trying to study. Being able to print out the notes, share them with friends, study without having to haul around a laptop, find power, or navigate with a keyboard in the silent study floor of the library was important.