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Obisidan and general note taking (hexbear.net)
submitted 4 days ago by to c/technology@hexbear.net
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So context, I've always used fully FOSS systems, aside from firmware, and I am a long time neovim and Linux user. I've tried neovim with wiki.vim before, but could never get into proper note taking. I ended up amassing a like 100 separate notes, never revisiting them, even if I tried to link between them. But I checked Obsidian out of curiosity. My issue of being unable and very bad at taking notes kind of went away, and the link system works pretty well. I feel very conflicted about using it as it's closed source, though I know many vouch for it, and it's arguably the only closed source I've been using in the past 5 years (I've been trying it for the last 2 days.) I know LogSeq exists and it went to shit since the rewrite to storing notes in.. SQL? lol

Maybe my problem is with the way I approach notes. I feel like I just type things and never revisit them, but Obsidian forcing me to link between them makes me revisit them. This is one of my gripes, and also the fact 99% of the time I feel I have nothing to say / write about / someone else wrote it before me so it shouldn't matter, so I don't exactly feel inspired

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[–] 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 child)

Adding more context, as I also love Org mode:

The main feature of Obsidian is the ability to create links ("backlinks") between two note files. This feature can be added with the Org Roam which is the Org version of Roam Research's note-taking system. I like the Org Node package, which is essentially the same as Org Roam, but with improved performance and no database complexity. I mention these other programs to demonstrate that, actually, Obsidian replicates features already achieved by other programs. There is no need to use Obsidian if you are starting from scratch.

The cost/benefit of learning the Org syntax, which is anyway not that bad if you know Markdown, is even better when noting that many Emacs packages use Org files for configuration. For example, elfeed-org for RSS feeds, and anki-editor for building Anki flashcards. So this is not a one-off syntax that applies only to notes.

Org Mode can also replace Jupyter notebooks, with the built-in org-babel feature: you can embed executable code into your notes!! Overview of org-babel. This feature creates incredible possibilities, blurring the lines between source code and documentation. Indeed, many Emacs users write their config file (source code) as an Org file, which is processed ("tangled") into a source code file later on. That way, the code can be documented in Org's rich markup formatting, and regions can be folded with Org Mode's outlining capability (which is itself just Emacs's outline-mode, not specific to Org Mode)

The ability to add properties to Org Mode headings is what enables so much extensibility in features like Org Agenda (calendar/todo/time tracking), Anki decks, contact cards (org-contacts), and almost anything else. Org Mode is more than a mark-up language; it is practically a high-level, human-readable programming language. But the great thing is you don't have to do all the advanced stuff. Org Mode is excellent at its core purpose of outlined note-taking. But the advanced stuff is there whenever you need it.

@transbyanism@hexbear.net

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