Best app/note-taking platform to keep Computer Science notes?

Question

The Situation

I am a 3rd year CS student currently on break after my finals. I was recently looking back through the notes I took for the past 2 years and they are all over the place, some on paper, some on my iPad, a few on apple notes, notion, etc. and I wanted to organize all of them. Note, all of them are only for the CS classes and not other math/elective classes so there are a few specific things that need attention

• Code Integration - There will not just be notes but, program files containing associated code for that topic. I would prefer if I can keep those files separately along with a 'notes' file for reference. This will also allow me to run the programs in future easily
• Math Equations - Due to there occasionally being some math heavy concepts, I want to be able to use something like LaTex to write those equations
• Typed Notes - I want the notes to be typed rather than hand written since that's a lot faster

The Problem

I'm struggling to decide upon the best platform to keep all my notes. Here's what I've considered so far along with the drawbacks

• Microsoft Word (Writing equations is cumbersome and no proper formatting/syntax highlighting for code, also not aesthetically pleasing) - apple notes, one note have more or less the same problems.
• GoodNotes (I can type the notes and write the equations but, my handwriting is really bad)
• Notion (all good but If I upload the program files on it, I would have to download the file locally and then run it making the process a bit slow and I reference past codes very often.)
• LaTex (absolutely love the compiled pdfs but the whole process takes a lot of time, adjusting images, margins, tables, etc. and once my pages start increasing, the compile time starts annoying me)

The Solution ??

I have finally decided upon using a separate markdown (plain .md or maybe Obisidian but I have never tried it) file for my notes due to the following reasons- locally stored, quick compile times, use latex directly, aesthetically okay.

What do you all think? Is there a better way to approach this? Any tips or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

For me LaTeX is the way to go. You need to establish your own workflow and setup to do it efficiently which is a lot of boilerplate work at first. After that it can be really smootth.

An honorable mention for an answer to a question like this I would give to Gilles Castel who wrote a few blog posts about this topic in which he neatly outlined how he takes notes in LaTeX very efficently even during lectures. There is also a video out there.

Answer 2

Markdown might be a good option, or any other that you are familiar with and don't need to struggle with. However:

Any technical solution can fail you in one or more of several ways. If a company is responsible for the features and future of some product they might obsolete it. Google is fairly famous for dropping interesting tools as there is little financial incentive for them to keep supporting it. A future version of the operating system on your computer might not support it. Cloud based solutions can fail for this reason or for technical glitches that lose information.

The media in which you store things can become obsolete. I have tons of 3.5 inch floppy disks. I actually have a reader, but the media deteriorates in time. So, you need to back up your back ups to newer media.

Let's assume that you might possibly want those notes in 40 years. That was my situation. Paper notes, if properly stored and cared for can last. The paper should be fairly good quality, but even cheap paper will last for that long if you keep it dry and away from fire.

So, I suggest that whatever you use to capture the notes, use paper as part of your backup system.

It is also useful to summarize notes from any format on index cards, a few of which can be carried with you for review. It is much simpler to pull out 20 index cards and annotate them on a bus than it is to drag out a laptop. That review is also part of learning. Thinking that having captured notes in some format means that you "know" it is a misconception. Review, comparison, revision are all required. Non technical solutions may be superior in some respects than the fanciest, most feature rich, technical ones.

Caveat: Yes, I'm old, but I'm also fairly tech savvy and have seen it all (or much of it anyway).

I'll also note that many (many) years ago a fellow undergraduate student learned shorthand for note taking. He was in a non-technical subject and computers that could be carried around didn't exist. But he was also the top graduate in our class. He is also the one that taught me the index card trick.

You want effective solutions. Efficiency is less important.

Answer 3

First, separate the actions of taking notes versus reviewing notes versus storing notes versus processing notes. You may want three different classes of applications, one class to take notes, one to store them, and one to review/process them. Alternatively, the latter two classes of actions (store and review/process) can often be combined into one application, and the first action to take notes can be left to a dedicated "note taking" application that performs according to the need to allow fast yet coherent input.

Any options on taking text notes must be future proof. You will not want to struggle later to find a way to open content that you stored in an application that is no longer supported. The extreme extrapolation of this restriction typically means storing as vanilla ASCII text (although UNICODE will not go away in anyone's foreseeable lifetime). Markdown is an option to flavor the text when viewing it, while rtf is acceptable but can be cumbersome. Finally, LaTeX is designed as a tool to take text to printing, and the overhead when taking notes can be overkill. Markdown allows LaTeX, and this compromise can be leveraged nicely to allow you to type rapidly when you want just text input yet polish up later with LaTeX math when you want to see equations in a structured way for reading/reviewing modes. Be aware that markdown has various dialects, and one flavor of markdown may not translate to another.

The options to take notes also must not distort the original content. For images, this guideline argues to prefer PNG or PDF format to JPEG.

How you choose after considering the above is a matter of personal preference. As you explore, set a goal to have a workflow with the lowest friction. As one recommendation, don't fall for the one-app-to-rule-them-all guideline just because using more than one app gives added "friction". By example, I've not known a case where a multi-use app does as well as at allowing easy, intuitive note taking compared to a dedicated app for note taking. Also, whether you need to factor in using a multi-platform approach (iPadOS, iPhoneOS, Windows, macOS) can define or limit your options for applications.

What do you all think [about using markdown]? Is there a better way to approach this? Any tips or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

I think you have settled on a reasonable and future-proof way to take and store typed text notes based on your needs. What remains is to choose applications for capturing images, coding, programming, or other equivalent actions. Finally, you may want to take some time to test various applications that allow you to assemble and process your collections of documents and notes. Applications in this category include Notion, OneNote, Obsidian, DevonThink, Roam, Typora, and others.

Best platform to keep ... notes?

My best applications for note taking and processing are tied to my two computer platforms (macOS and iPadOS). They meet two criteria: intuitive to use and effective to apply for the demand (take notes or process notes). The first criteria is a user-interface demand and the second is a workflow demand. I reached my choices on best applications to take or process notes through a process of elimination. When I find that an application is aesthetically cumbersome (ugly) to appreciate, or when I find that the application requires more steps to complete a given task compared to other applications, I eventually stop using that application.

In short, rather than asking in hopes that others will tell you what the best platform / application is, invert this question. What are your criteria to define best note taking and best note processing? Using those criteria and your limitations to the computer platform you use (Windows, macOS, iPadOS ...), test various applications. Finally, appreciate that the answer can (and likely will) change over time. Your platforms and applications will evolve, and your appreciation of what defines best for you will evolve.

All this being said, regardless of specific platform and applications, I hope my posting gives you an appreciation of how to approach the choices that you face in the best overall ways possible to meet your needs. When you want to explore more about this topic, search through the wealth of postings about it on general discussion forums things as outliner software (dot com) or (mac) power users (dot com) as well as on the blog/forum groups for the specific applications that interest you (e.g. obsidian dot md).

Answer 4

I recently started using Joplin, which allows you to organize notes hierarchically, supports Math and code inline, and allows you to attach files. It also synchronizes over multiple devices and is open source.