Comment on Laboratory note book for my new research group
illusionist@lemmy.zip 6 days ago
It depends on what you guys do.
Markdown is very easy to use. It can be learned within a couple of minutes.
Do you calculate stuff? -> quarto
Modern, comprehensible latex? --> typst
Do you want trackable research? --> git
Scrath@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 days ago
I’m gonna upvote the git + plain markdown solution simply because it is a very basic solution that does not depend on a lot of specific software in case you want to switch in the future. I had a look at obsidian in the past but discarded that idea because it required a license for commercial use back then which it seems they either changed or I misread the terms at the time.
Still I am a fan of going as low-tech as possible with note formats so that I can easily hand down my notes to whoever comes after me and they won’t need a special program to open anything.
Quarto looks nice and would be something I would look into if I did more data heavy work. As it is I only write technical notes and documentation for software for which plain markdown is perfectly suitable.
illusionist@lemmy.zip 5 days ago
Markdown is just a universal language. Using WYSIWYG editors it’s even better than using common word processors. Evreything is consistent, easy and beautiful.
Scrath@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 days ago
Oh yes definitely. I currently have to write the technical documentation for a project I am working on in MS Word because that’s the format my supervisor wants (since everyone in the organisation already has word installed by default and knows how to use it at least somewhat). Probably a quarter of the time I spend writing is lost to fighting the formatting in word. I managed to have stuff happen that my coworkers have never seen word do before like taking the content of all my textfields (which I use for pasting code snippets) and having it duplicated inside each textfield…
I wished I could use LaTeX for it but I understand the argument that some people after me may have to work on the project who don’t know LaTeX.
illusionist@lemmy.zip 5 days ago
I feel you. Using word is like going backwards.
Especially technical docs should never be in word. Converting markdown to html is so easy but I get where you are.