Ask HN: How do you keep track of code experiments/spikes/side projects?

withinboredom · on Feb 25, 2022

I use InkDrop (InkDrop.app) to organize notes. I like it because it’s GH flavored markdown, and when mixed with the prettier plugin it is amazing. Everything I write down (whether it’s SQL queries or an internal doc) starts there. Every project idea starts there too. I have tags for “project phases” so I can go back and look at early thoughts of a project.

It’s not perfect, but it works for me.

elcapitan · on Feb 25, 2022

Does this give you more than a collection of notes about the specific projects though? I'm using Joplin (MD notes with code highlighting etc) in a similar way, but it ends up just another flat collection parallel to the dev directory..

withinboredom · on Feb 25, 2022

You can create a hierarchy of "journals" (a collection of documents, like a folder) and use tags across all journals or have per-journal tags. It's totally up to you how you organize it. You can also set a status on a document such as "on hold", "completed", "active" etc so you can see -- at a glance -- what you're working on. It's literally the best 4 bucks a month I could spend.

raxxorrax · on Feb 25, 2022

I do the same, I have this very unstructured folder. I have Gitea running on a server, but I create a repositories quite rarely, so the folder it is for now.

Still works though if I remember that I looked into something. I wish I would take more notes though and if I do it is mostly text files withing project folders.