Beefy Boxes and Bandwidth Generously Provided by pair Networks
Syntactic Confectionery Delight
 
PerlMonks  

comment on

( [id://3333]=superdoc: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??

In this meditation, I recommend keeping a technical diary.

A diary is usually literature written to be read by the author. As its Latin name implies, its contents are arranged by the day's date. Ideally, a diary tracks every day's events. Entries may be very brief or extended; they may reflect the summation of a problem satisfactorily solved or as likely, they may record failures, or be used to freeze-frame an incomplete thought; they may be highly personal in nature, or not. A diary records what the author wants to read.

An entry in a diary expresses thoughts that are in some stage of taking form, it is a glimpse of the author's state of mind while making way through the unmarked paths of new experience. The author's understanding is the work in progress described by a diary, and so, a diary entry is rarely a work ready for publication. A diary isn't kept with the primary purpose of publishing its contents - in fact, the effectiveness of the diary technique will be significantly affected, probably hurt, by the prospect of others reading the material. It may be private and random, or it may be more polished journal-type literature but, whether the journal is ever read by others, is the author's choice. It is material written for oneself.

I use a diary technique myself, for technical issues, especially when I begin to struggle while learning some new thing. I start making entries when I seem to be having trouble thinking through a problem clearly, and especially when I find I am stumbling, fumbling with the same or similar solutions repeatedly but making little progress. I prefer to keep separate project diaries, even though I usually don't make more than a couple entries in any of them each day.

Here's a sample entry from my 'dbi_diary.html' (It's not necessary to sign every diary entry as '**sigh**.' but I usually do.):


Wed Jan 16 10:02:39 PST 2002
found in /root/.cpan/build/DBD-mysql-2.1010/t/dbdadmin.t

test uses the perl library lib.pl, which is found in the
same directory. I copied them both to my ~/bin directory.
To set up dbdadmin.t to run outside of the test directory,
lib.pl is happy to accept environment variables, or just
let it run with its defaults.
$ perl -we '
BEGIN{ $ENV{DBI_DSN} = q(DBI:mysql:database=test);
$ENV{DBI_USER}= qw(root);
$ENV{DBI_PASS}= "passwd";
}
do "/usr/home/markmc/bin/dbdadmin.t";
######### RESULT >>>>>>'
1..20
ok 1
ok 2
ok 3
ok 4
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

**sigh**.

Thu Jan 17 09:04:00 PST 2002
I removed the password for my mysql root, and the problem went away.
Curious thing:
the login was correct, but mysql resources weren't being listed. The
seg fault was caused by attempting to work on an empty list.
Some sort of privileges issue, I think - something affecting
logins via DBI but not via mysql shell.
Curiouser thing:
The problem doesn't affect system user 'root', regardless of mysql login
(as long as the login is correct, of course).
That ain't how it's s'posed to work, is it?

**sigh**.

Even if each day's entries appear to be a record of defeats when they are written, they may obtain a very different aspect when they are read again, later. For someone of a more self-assured temperament, the effect may be the opposite of mine. I like that about the diary technique. It provides a view over the backyard wall, a survey of problems I dealt with in the neighboring previous days, together with an insight into myself and the way that I work, as I recorded my thoughts in the midst of the experiences - otherwise only unsympathetically and imperfectly recollected. It's a record of what has been learned or what remains to be understood, and even of what has been forgotten.

If you've never used a daily journal for working through technical problems, I hope that this meditation makes the idea sound interesting to you. I think you will see immediate benefits from giving it a try. For many technical people, it's an indispensable tool; but, most of them very likely use a diary differently than I have illustrated here. The ways of using it are as varied as people are different from one another.

I've also thought that a private journal could be a useful feature on this site - and at about the time I was giving thought to this, the Scratchpad showed up in the Monastery. I've noticed that some monks use their scratchpad in a sort of diary fashion. Maybe consideration could be given to a calendarized scratchpad - private nodes automatically indexed by date, that can be made public or stumbitted to SOPW, for example.

You monks who regularly use a diary technique as you work through problems, how have you benefitted? How do you use it? Please tell me what you think about diaries.
mkmcconn


In reply to diaries useful by mkmcconn

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post; it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":



  • Are you posting in the right place? Check out Where do I post X? to know for sure.
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags. Currently these include the following:
    <code> <a> <b> <big> <blockquote> <br /> <dd> <dl> <dt> <em> <font> <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <hr /> <i> <li> <nbsp> <ol> <p> <small> <strike> <strong> <sub> <sup> <table> <td> <th> <tr> <tt> <u> <ul>
  • Snippets of code should be wrapped in <code> tags not <pre> tags. In fact, <pre> tags should generally be avoided. If they must be used, extreme care should be taken to ensure that their contents do not have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor intervention).
  • Want more info? How to link or How to display code and escape characters are good places to start.
Log In?
Username:
Password:

What's my password?
Create A New User
Domain Nodelet?
Chatterbox?
and the web crawler heard nothing...

How do I use this?Last hourOther CB clients
Other Users?
Others goofing around in the Monastery: (6)
As of 2024-03-28 10:58 GMT
Sections?
Information?
Find Nodes?
Leftovers?
    Voting Booth?

    No recent polls found