The note taking space is interesting to me. You say the problem is solved, and yet, every time I see a new app in this space, I perk up because I hope that maybe this is the one that will resonate/work for me.
Note taking is a deeply personal process. Physical notebooks as a medium are infinitely flexible but apps are not. This means that 100 different people writing notes on paper might be doing so in 100 different ways.
I’d argue that this is why this is such a crowded (or rich) product category.
I often find that <very popular “ultimate” note taking app> is not for me, and I find myself hoping for something that fits my particular needs and habits. I’ve occasionally thought about trying to build my own.
All of this to say: I don’t think the cynicism is needed here. Even if this is a solved problem for you, it’s not for all of us, and I think the evidence that this is true is found in the fact that developers keep looking for new ways to solve this problem.
My opinion is slightly different - I don’t think note taking is about the app, but rather about the process. Because of that, all of us will always be looking for something to make that process something better than we currently experience.
To me, it’s either paper, Notepad(or any simple text app), or Excel. Everything else is about the process.
But then, maybe I’ve become old and crusty and just don’t know it yet. Sigh.
I've come to think the missing piece is a system or process of helping each person experiment through different note taking styles or systems, until they find what resonates best with them, or exposing them to various systems, different ones which they may realize work best for different contexts of what they're doing - for different projects or mental contexts, etc.
I too have an idea for a "note taking" app - essentially better streamlining, automating, and extending what I currently do - but maybe the process or steps I currently take are integral to what I currently do working. Who knows. Will I ever get the chance to create the custom "note taking" app that I envision? Who knows.
For now, because of my situation with severe chronic pain and how it impacts/disrupts my executive function, I will have multiple TODO lists on q-cards, and dozens and dozens TODO lists in various notes on my laptop and phone, none of which are synchronized - most of them lost to the past and therefore inherently part of a backlog of relatively unimportant things that otherwise would surface again in my mind or life if they were important enough.
Yes. All the more reason not to encumber it with large dependencies, proprietary code, or fragile, transient technologies.
I switched to using git as a repository of structured notes. The schema is simple. I can pull notes to various machines, I can archive the repository, I can track changes.
"Everything should be as simple as possible and no simpler." -- attributed to a rather good physicist.
The process requires typing a note using the keyboard and then pushing the new/revised text to git. Git works on every computer and CPU architecture that I have used... and I have used a wider variety than most.
If one's parents are the acceptance testers for usability... I think I might recommend that they use something that they understand fully. That might be git, but it might also be a Moleskin notebook and an ink or graphite writing instrument. ^_^
Ok I agree, different types of people have different kinds of systems that are the most simple for them. But in that case, is it also possible that for some people the most simple system has a lot of large dependencies? (Maybe people who are young, used to writing by typing on a smartphone, not used to pen and paper, and never used git or a command line)
Totally! I made tap and I still use org-mode for a lot of stuff! I think we all think slightly different things when we hear "notes" It is both an artifact and also a system for capturing the artifacts. the artifact is often, but not always, just some boring text -- but the way it is captured and used can be really interesting and as varied as the artifacts themselves. _so. many. possibilities._!
Not really. But _some_ part of my motivation to build tap was the difficulty convincing anybody to use emacs.
Here are a couple points anyway:
- I love getting email summaries of different note categories. I email myself a list of all my programming related reading saturday morning, it's great.
- Entering a quick note via sms is hard to beat, especially because /tap sends me text messages every day and so it's always pretty high up on the recent messages list
I think there is probably some opportunity for an Emacs distribution that is specifically targeted at these potential users. However, not as a way to try to get them to join the Church of Emacs[1]. Emacs would be no more than an implementation detail for a great note taking app. I imagine something along the lines Nicolas Rougier's notebook-mode[2], but without the focus on literate programming. Just nice formatting, quality variable pitch fonts, and familiar keybinds. Maybe some kind of slick configuration of artist-mode too.
I have to say this makes sense to me, and I've always known that I'm just not in the target audience for these apps, but if you'll allow me to poke some fun at your comment for a second, I'd paraphrase it as "my note-taking needs are so intricate that nobody has hit the right spot yet. I need a perfect soup of features coded and exposed to me in just the right way so that when I finally write down a note I have a mental orgasm" :)
Joking aside, I personally think it's more important to focus my attention on the substance of the note, rather than the process of taking the notes, though the two aren't in conflict with each other, except for the times when they take away from your time and mental bandwidth.
I assume most note-taking apps originated with someone figuring out what system / process resonates for them. But ultimately that system / process is optimal only for that person. I've given up on adapting an off-the-shelf app... in part because I lack the self awareness here to know what's optimal for me. It's only in the process of working it out for myself on a basic canvas (e.g. a spreadsheet, text files, pen and paper) that I'll have any idea what will work and stick. I'm many iterations into that process. I'll look to /tap for inspiration! It looks awesome, props.
See, the thing is-- MANY times in the past I've "perked up," nearly 100% that I'll switch from the thing I started with -- and end up ALWAYS going back, forgetting how much I have to put in.
This is why I think some cynicism here might be healthy; I think software has a LOT of wasted repeated effort by developers; mostly due to a little too much "let me make a product" mentality and not enough "free/open source" mentality*
and again before the pitchforks come out, I'm emphatically not saying FOSS is always superior, but I do think this balance is presently off.
Note taking is a deeply personal process. Physical notebooks as a medium are infinitely flexible but apps are not. This means that 100 different people writing notes on paper might be doing so in 100 different ways.
I’d argue that this is why this is such a crowded (or rich) product category.
I often find that <very popular “ultimate” note taking app> is not for me, and I find myself hoping for something that fits my particular needs and habits. I’ve occasionally thought about trying to build my own.
All of this to say: I don’t think the cynicism is needed here. Even if this is a solved problem for you, it’s not for all of us, and I think the evidence that this is true is found in the fact that developers keep looking for new ways to solve this problem.