How to Take Notes While Learning to Code

Someone asked me this question:

I'm doing a course on JavaScript. Rather than mindlessly copy what the instructor is doing I take notes and screenshots throughout the course and then go over them once more after the course is over. Is this very effective?

When you're learning a new programming language or framework, you may feel tempted to write down every single detail to make sure you don't miss anything important. However, it's not necessary to memorize everything.

What's more important is to be aware that certain things exist, so you can look them up later when you need to. Most programming languages and libraries have good online documentation, which often provides better references than your own notes.

Instead of just taking notes, it's more beneficial to apply what you learn by actually building something. Learn a concept and then try to use it in your own project. This approach will help you understand the concept better and remember it for a longer time.

Later, when you finish learning and start working on a bigger project, you might forget something about the language, like a specific coding structure. In such cases:

• If you remember the name of the coding structure but don't recall the syntax, you can quickly search online or search your personal examples folder where you have fully working examples of that structure. You can even copy the skeleton code from your simple example to your larger project.

• If you don't remember the name of the coding structure but know its functional purpose, you can go back to your example programs and quickly find the structure and a working example.

• If you know that a certain feature exists in the language but don't know how to use it, you can easily search online for a guide on how to implement it.

In general, unless you're learning a really new or uncommon programming language, you'll find that many people have already created websites, books, cheat sheets, and quick reference guides. It's not worth the effort to create your own from scratch. Instead, keep a list of links, references, and books that you find helpful.

If you still want to take notes, you can use Markdown. It is a plain text format that is very flexible. It can be read by any text editor and is commonly used for writing README files. This allows you to combine regular note-taking with code snippets (I'm using it to for writing my blogs). You can even store your notes on GitHub so that you can access them from anywhere.