Ask HN: What's the best way to keep a project log or journal?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10407199

by webmasterraj • 11 years ago

8 11 11 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Where you write down thoughts/what you did/next steps. I use text files, but it's a little hard to look back on afterwards in a cohesive way. I'm wondering if people use other ways?

japhyr• 11 years ago

Text files and grep to look back. Then when a project starts to have some longevity I skim through the notes and make more formal documentation of some aspects of the work I'm doing.

I think I'll always stay with simple text files for projects that may or may not go anywhere.

qrv3w• 11 years ago

Plain text files are a great way to go. You should check out JRNL, https://maebert.github.io/jrnl/. It uses a single file and allows encryption and basically provides easy simple command line support for adding time-dated entries.

stakent• 11 years ago

After a lot of fiddling with different options I use Vimwiki running in separate Vim instance on dedicated virtual screen.

Hit ^6, hit enter, hit F4 to put the timestamp, write. Done.

canterburry• 11 years ago

Your git commit logs... Because what you actually accomplished is all that really matters.

trcollinson• 11 years ago

I'm not entirely sure why this was downvoted. I think this is a more than reasonable way of keeping track. And honestly, with git commit messages you can even keep track of the things you want to do next.

wingerlang• 11 years ago

I disagree, I keep just about everything. Obviously the git is /the/ log for the code itself. But there's more to a project than code. I routinely take screenshots and just dump them into a "art dump" folder. It is nice to look back at ideas and features that went away, maybe for a "behind the scenes" look.

Git also doesn't keep ideas, brainstorm and discussion about them. I use Trello for this but it's just personal. But it lets you easily file things as "maybe some day" and "actually doing/done".

dain• 11 years ago

I recorded a brief screencast of how I keep a dev journal. :) https://youtu.be/4W8i8FTz_ck

Hope it's helpful!

kevinkppeterson• 11 years ago

Evernote?

gmsdiwakar• 11 years ago

github seems like good option.

devarist• 11 years ago

Devarist is built for keeping a work journal. It supports Markdown and images too.

Check it out, feedback is very welcome :-)

https://devarist.com

e19293001• 11 years ago

I would recommend emacs org-mode. I've been using it for months now and became way more productive than before. You may want to take a look at this fine set-up. http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html

Ask HN: What's the best way to keep a project log or journal?

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