Note taking tips and tricks

As we progress through the Flatiron program, my style of note taking has changed. Originally, I was utilizing a Google doc, but was finding it a bit annoying to have yet another window open, let along having to wait for the page to load, blah blah blah.

Next I tried taking notes in text document on my desktop that I could pull up quick, if and when needed. It was quick, but ugly. None of the formatting I wanted would carry over without having to basically redo it all. UGH! What a time killer… And all the while, I would take some notes on a small whiteboard and pencil/paper next to me.

There’s got to be a better way, and I think I’ve found it (for the moment.)

Many (all?) README files in the program have the .md extension. The .md is referring to it as a Markdown language file, and here’s where the power/tricks come into play:

Using three backticks (`) will allow you to format the code into that languages style. Here’s blank example:

```language_name
your_code
```

Another example utilizing ruby:

```ruby
<%= form_for @article do |f| %>
<%= f.label 'Article Title' %><br>
<%= f.text_field :title %><br>
<%= f.label 'Article Description' %><br>
<%= f.text_area :description %><br>
<%= f.submit "Submit Article" %>
<% end %>
```

And if you need just one line of code, you can use opening/closing backticks:

`resources :articles, only: [:index, :show, :new, :create, :edit, :update]`

Some quick basics:

To make an h1 tag (heading level 1), simply use the # symbol:

# your heading here

Unordered (bullet) lists. Use *, -, or +

* item 1
* item 2
* item 3

There’s a bunch more you can do with it, but this will help get things started. Now that you have all your notes, one of the problems I have is finding the reference. Fortunately in VisualStudio Code, you can use the Find in Files command (cmd+shift+f) to search through all of your opened directory. So if you have all of Module 3 located in one directory, a quick summon of cmd+shift+f will let you search all of your readme files, labs and your notes.

Here’s a link to the documentation.

Edit Jan. 26, 2021 - Another tip:

Don’t read the README files in a web browser.

But why!?

I mean, of course you can, and everything will work. It’s much more efficient to open the README file in your editor so you don’t have to toggle between applications. More importantly, it’s easier to copy snippets for note taking/reference. Plus, in some of the labs, you’re asked to copy/paste a block into the model/view/controller/wherever. Yes, you should probably type these in (most of the time) but inevitably you’ll have a typo and spend x minutes debugging something. Now, don’t get me wrong. You should type these things in to go through the motions, and make it as tangible as possible. It’s not going to hurt to be efficient when you need to either.