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Keeping some notes on things you google over and over again kind of makes sense, but honestly I find that it takes just as long it not longer to find it in my n

Keeping some notes on things you google over and over again kind of makes sense, but honestly I find that it takes just as long it not longer to find it in my notes than it does to just Google it. Search is so fast and accurate, why do I really need to write it down when I can pull it up in my browser? For deeper topics, I totally get it (as in some of the examples you provided), but for snippet things like that, I just don't see the advantage of keeping it in my notes. Hell, the few times I've done that, I forgot it was even in my notes and just Googled anyways. Even bookmarks end up being ignored and I search again rather than finding my bookmark! I completely understand the inclination though and (perhaps self-contradictorily) I myself use Raindrop to save and organize things I find online. But I rarely end up doing anything with them. I guess the point is that writing things down makes sense to me when either a) the act of writing itself is beneficial or b) it's more involved than a Linux snippet or the like...something that ends up more like a personal README. I do hear your points though and genuinely like to hear about other people's process so thank you for sharing.

jplayer01 7y ago
I really, really, really don’t agree about how long it takes to Google. I’ve actively compared how long it takes. There’s no comparison. Emacs with fuzzy search is insanely fast and I can find anything within seconds. And google - it really isn’t that fast. You end up trawling through anywhere from 1-5 different sites looking for the exact right piece of information and the right context, then you need to scroll through them, evaluate the different answers because they end up answering different things, then you try different solutions because you don’t remember which one was correct. It all adds up. I spent this year learning how to use Docker and I feel this was the perfect use case. A lot of obscure incantations to do things and the documentation is ... well, extensive. Unless you know exactly what you’re looking for and exactly where it is, it can take what feels like forever to find what you need, when you just want to keep working. Instead, I can refer to my notes within seconds for the exact pre-crafted commands that do everything I need, plus supplementary information about pitfalls and issues I’ve run into. And the longer it takes, even if it’s just 10-20 seconds longer (and it’s usually minutes longer), the longer it takes to get back into what you were doing before. I try to keep context switches as minimal as possible, and google simply isn’t precise enough compared to a hand-crafted knowledge database with the right tools. Hell, since I use Emacs for nearly everything, I can pretty much switch to my notes immediately. I’ve reached a point where it really annoys me when I have to google, because I know how long it can take to find a workable solution.
- greenyoda 7y ago
  Other problems with using Google as a reference: - You may find search results that exactly match what you're looking for, but are wrong or useless. They may refer to an obsolete version of the software you're trying to use, or they could take you to a question on Stack Overflow that has no answers, or they may have been written by someone who didn't know what they were doing but just wanted to blog about it. - Google is distracting. It's filled with ads, and with interesting stuff that you're tempted to click on that's unrelated to what you're currently doing. Your own notes are much more focused on the tasks that you want to accomplish.

jplayer01 7y ago

I really, really, really don’t agree about how long it takes to Google. I’ve actively compared how long it takes. There’s no comparison. Emacs with fuzzy search is insanely fast and I can find anything within seconds. And google - it really isn’t that fast. You end up trawling through anywhere from 1-5 different sites looking for the exact right piece of information and the right context, then you need to scroll through them, evaluate the different answers because they end up answering different things, then you try different solutions because you don’t remember which one was correct. It all adds up. I spent this year learning how to use Docker and I feel this was the perfect use case. A lot of obscure incantations to do things and the documentation is ... well, extensive. Unless you know exactly what you’re looking for and exactly where it is, it can take what feels like forever to find what you need, when you just want to keep working. Instead, I can refer to my notes within seconds for the exact pre-crafted commands that do everything I need, plus supplementary information about pitfalls and issues I’ve run into. And the longer it takes, even if it’s just 10-20 seconds longer (and it’s usually minutes longer), the longer it takes to get back into what you were doing before. I try to keep context switches as minimal as possible, and google simply isn’t precise enough compared to a hand-crafted knowledge database with the right tools. Hell, since I use Emacs for nearly everything, I can pretty much switch to my notes immediately. I’ve reached a point where it really annoys me when I have to google, because I know how long it can take to find a workable solution.

greenyoda 7y ago
Other problems with using Google as a reference: - You may find search results that exactly match what you're looking for, but are wrong or useless. They may refer to an obsolete version of the software you're trying to use, or they could take you to a question on Stack Overflow that has no answers, or they may have been written by someone who didn't know what they were doing but just wanted to blog about it. - Google is distracting. It's filled with ads, and with interesting stuff that you're tempted to click on that's unrelated to what you're currently doing. Your own notes are much more focused on the tasks that you want to accomplish.