El Fri, 10 Oct 2014 16:48:39 -0500 John Hendy va escriure: > > On Fri, Oct 10, 2014 at 10:46 AM, Daniel Clemente <n142...@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