Python Forum
Returning to coding after >1 year
Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Returning to coding after >1 year
#1
I posted to the mods forum recently about returning after my long break but thought I'd post here too. I took a break from the forum because of mental health stuff, then had life stuff happen, then quit my job, then more life stuff, and it's been life stuff for over a year with no time for a job yet. During this time I barely coded at all, after ~15 years of never going more than two weeks (usually no more than a couple of days) without a fairly substantial amount of coding.

I still haven't gotten back into the swing of things, though remains Python what I reach for first. I've actually been distracted by something else though that I wanted to share. I discovered mind gardening and then networked thinking more generally. I've been using (private) Google Docs for a few years, but it was kludgy.

I tried to get some open source wiki software running a few weeks before discovering the mind gardening article but basically gave up. But then! I discovered Roam Research and fell in love with it - it's not just like a wiki, it's like a wiki that is extremely easy to modify quickly on the fly. I had meant to look into networked thinking tooling more before investing in a particular tool but it was addictive. I'm now busy moving to Obsidian, and I'm paying a cost for letting my Roam graph build for so long.

I keep expecting to be more into coding than I am, but it's because I've had legit distractions. Once I get momentum with Obsidian, I'll re-learn Python faster and learn new things faster. That said, I've been doing therapy 2x/week to deal with CPTSD and I do a lot of prep and then integration after. So for anyone curious, I use the same tooling for managing tech knowledge and also processing serious trauma. I love it and cannot imagine going back. (Another reason I've failed to get back into coding is that I kept having false starts where something would distract me and I'd forget what I'd recently re-learned, which felt like wasted time. With networked notes I expect this to be less of an issue going forward.)

I basically just wanted to give that update, but if anyone has anything interesting to share about note-taking, I'd certainly be curious! I've seen colleagues who use regular text files and Trello, but I don't personally know anyone else using networked thinking.

P.S. For anyone totally unfamiliar with me, I was active on the forum from around 2005 through October 2020. In 2009 I became a mod. In 2013 I graduated from university and became a software engineer. In my last role, I did backend and data engineering (with Scala, Python, SQL, and Bash), though I'd like to learn Javascript for practical reasons. (I say this after literally a decade of hoping JS would be replaced wholesale with something better 😢)
Reply
#2
I've always had a preference for mind mapping, based on the Tony Buzan approach, and whilst I've made heavy use of the more sophisticated tools, such as Mind Manager, over the years (not least to read and sort out messed up Microsoft Project files), I tend to go analogue for learning things and meeting notes.

I use RocketBook notebooks and scan my hand-drawn multicolour maps with their app which sends a PDF copies to my primary repositories (OneNote, etc).
I am trying to help you, really, even if it doesn't always seem that way
Reply
#3
The Building a Second Brain community is where I'm spending time right now. I will surely get back to Python, but less right-now than I expected.
Reply
#4
I recently got back into coding as well. As is common for people with CPTSD, like myself, I just accumulated more and more recent trauma because of my inability to cope or connect with people. I spent the last entire year homeless far out in the forest, as far from people as I could be, all alone. Got a home again now. Seems good, but I'm really struggling to remember what I had learned as I attempt to rebuild all the game code I'd lost.

As far as note taking regarding trauma, on paper, then throw it into my nightly fire :)

Take care of yourself, brother, and remember to let people care about you.
Reply
#5
(Jun-22-2022, 04:35 PM)XavierPlatinum Wrote: I spent the last entire year homeless far out in the forest, as far from people as I could be, all alone.
How could you live this way? Where did you sleep an protect from cold and bad weather and find some food?
Reply
#6
I know some people who did the same. Some of them are still living isolated in the Forrest (since Covid). Most of them are done with the normal people (superficial foreign controlled blind society). The other big problem is the Hamster wheel (work).

We are not ill, the society and the world is ill.
But the healing is on the way. I believe in this.
Almost dead, but too lazy to die: https://sourceserver.info
All humans together. We don't need politicians!
Reply
#7
(Jun-22-2022, 05:07 PM)Gribouillis Wrote:
(Jun-22-2022, 04:35 PM)XavierPlatinum Wrote: I spent the last entire year homeless far out in the forest, as far from people as I could be, all alone.
How could you live this way? Where did you sleep an protect from cold and bad weather and find some food?

I camped it! In the record heat, through the snow, all of it. I'd go to town to get supplies, but that's it. Have a coffee to charge my phone a little, then back out to the forest. Dealing with nature is easier than people. The forest had its rules and does it's thing. I found those challenges straight forward to tackle.
Reply
#8
(Jun-22-2022, 05:39 PM)DeaD_EyE Wrote: We are not ill, the society and the world is ill.
But the healing is on the way. I believe in this.

" It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."
-Jiddu Krishnamurti

One of my favorite quotes of all time. Our brains did not evolve in a post industrial media saturated society. We also didn't evolve having babies hived off from the rest of society and raised by stressed out parents who make it up as they go along. This is where CPSD comes from. In the past, emotional neglect was thought to make kids independent and tough. Ask your friends who are "hermits", they will all tell the same story.

If you don't value your thoughts and feelings, you'll never trust anyone who does.
DeaD_EyE likes this post
Reply
#9
(Jun-13-2022, 11:24 AM)gruntfutuk Wrote: I've always had a preference for mind mapping, [...] I tend to go analogue for learning things and meeting notes.

I use RocketBook notebooks and scan my hand-drawn multicolour maps with their app which sends a PDF copies to my primary repositories (OneNote, etc).

I erroneously thought "networked thinking" and "mind mapping" were more similar than I think at this point. The biggest difference it seems is that mind mapping is centered around something, whereas "networked thinking" is more like Wikipedia - not only is there no "center" but there's also no central index. I also personally still use a whiteboard with multiple colored markers sometimes, but I take pictures as I go and always save it back to digital. I usually only bother with analog if digital has some problem.


(Jun-22-2022, 04:35 PM)XavierPlatinum Wrote: As is common for people with CPTSD, like myself, I just accumulated more and more recent trauma because of my inability to cope or connect with people. I spent the last entire year homeless far out in the forest, as far from people as I could be, all alone. Got a home again now. Seems good, but I'm really struggling to remember what I had learned as I attempt to rebuild all the game code I'd lost.

As far as note taking regarding trauma, on paper, then throw it into my nightly fire :)

Take care of yourself, brother, and remember to let people care about you.

I'm sorry to hear you've had trouble, I'm glad to hear things have improved. I'm very privileged to have developed good savings from software engineering, but if I had to work through all this, I can definitely imagine ending up homeless. My dad was homeless for a bit when I was young, and I actually bought the car I did with the expectation that I could sleep in it if needed (which I was wrong about because I have IBS).

Part of what Tiago talks about in Building a Second Brain is how our bio brains are better at being creative when we can get distracting things out of our heads. Putting those things on paper and burning it surely has advantages! Personally I prefer having notes in my "mind graph" that I can link and interrelate. For example, I lost my three-person friend-group, so I have notes about the individuals, some notes about specific dates/hangouts, as well as multiple separate timeline notes that list different things out.


(Jun-22-2022, 10:41 PM)XavierPlatinum Wrote: Our brains did not evolve in a post industrial media saturated society. We also didn't evolve having babies hived off from the rest of society and raised by stressed out parents who make it up as they go along. This is where CPSD comes from. In the past, emotional neglect was thought to make kids independent and tough. Ask your friends who are "hermits", they will all tell the same story.

If you don't value your thoughts and feelings, you'll never trust anyone who does.

I would take this a step further and say that just like we all know that our diets have more salt/fat/sugar than they used to, I'd say that our attention and information diets are also messed up pretty badly. Mindfulness helps, but I found that taking notes on what I was consuming and what it was/wasn't doing for me made the biggest difference.

On a related note, politics about bodily autonomy aside, the recent news in the US means that there will be more generational trauma. Forcing people to remain pregnant and then give birth to babies they don't want is surely going to start a bunch of trauma cycles. If I could get pregnant, the mere fact that a dead person would have more bodily autonomy than me would be constantly re-traumatizing.


Separately - I came here to post and ask if anyone uses Dataview with Obsidian, but given that no one piped up about it or networked thinking at all I think the answer is no 😆 That said, Dataview lets you "treat your notes like a database" and lets you use a Javascript API or a SQL-like query language to run queries. I was hoping someone fluent in Python could help me get the lay of the land, but I think I'm on my own 🙃
XavierPlatinum likes this post
Reply


Forum Jump:

User Panel Messages

Announcements
Announcement #1 8/1/2020
Announcement #2 8/2/2020
Announcement #3 8/6/2020