notecalc3 VS github-orgmode-tests

To the OP, congratulations for stopping procrastination. :-) I like the idea of your project,I'm often in need of a little tool to help quickly calculate some finance related data. In this case, I often launch a LibreOffice sheet but it is rather heavy for what I need. I'll give your tool a try.

If you are looking for having notecalc3 running locally, the github[0] repository has all the installation instructions (not found in the documentation)

[0] https://github.com/bbodi/notecalc3

This looks fantastic. I will definitely give it a spin. I've been tracking what I call "computational scratchpad" apps for a while now but haven't found one that fits my environment/workflow yet. Maybe Heynote will. Here are some others that I've looked at:

* https://soulver.app Granddad of them all, Mac-only, proprietary, expensive

* https://numi.app Mac-only, proprietary, semi-expensive. Has a Github and claims to be MIT-licensed but I don't see how you could build a working application with what's in the repo.

* https://calca.io Windows- and Mac-only, proprietary, not expensive, nice docs.

* https://notepadcalculator.com Web-based, not open source, hosted but uses local storage. You can optionally create an account to sign in and have your notes saved in plaintext on his server.

* https://github.com/bbodi/notecalc3 Web-based, open source, self-hostable. But it seems to save your document in the URL string itself, which means the URL gets updated with almost every keystroke. Worth it for quick calculations and very small notes, I guess.

* https://numpad.io Web-based, hosted, not open source. Also stores entire doc in URL, but doesn't update the URL bar the whole time you're typing.

* https://numbr.dev/ Web-based, hosted. Has a Github but is not open source and the repo does not have all the bits needed to self-host it. Stores entire doc in URL.

* https://github.com/metakirby5/codi.vim Vim/NeoVim plugin that is less like a "smart notepad" and more like Jupyter but with results printed on the right side of the screen instead of in a cell below. Supports lots of programming languages.

I made a list of calculators like this which were shared here on HN over time https://gist.github.com/SMUsamaShah/6546011091d53380354484a3...

From these https://bbodi.github.io/notecalc3/ and https://notepadcalculator.com/ are the most programmer friendly (supporting <<, ^, binary, hex etc)

Another paradigm are Notebooks. Jupyter style are pretty popular these days, something like Wolfram Alpha's step-by-step mode or this project recently noted on HN https://bbodi.github.io/notecalc3/ are all good examples. Plenty of people use spreadsheets to explicitly chain operations.

A specific operation is much less important than the context, dimensional analysis, getting order-of-magnitude or precision correct. Performing operations narrowly is probably operating on the wrong level.

Very cool!

This reminds me of the open source NoteCalc: https://bbodi.github.io/notecalc3/

It was discussed on HN, you might look there for inspiration: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25495393

Since others already mentioned many fantastic alternatives, let me share mine: https://bbodi.github.io/notecalc3/

I answered here: https://github.com/bbodi/notecalc3/issues/6#issuecomment-749...

In a previous versions, only the changed areas were re-rendered, but the code was much more complex and error-prone, and it did not bring any performance improvement, so now I just rerender everything, still excellent performance but much simpler code.

- or to visualize and use it as a personal partner.

There's already a ton of open-source UIs such as Chatbot-ui[3] and Reor[4]. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Personally, I haven't been consistent enough through the years in note-taking.

So, I'm really curious to learn more about those of you who were and implemented such pipelines.

I'm sure there's a ton of really fascinating experiences.

[1] https://orgmode.org/

literate config (using ORG mode)

Obligatory reference to Emacs Org-Mode [1].

Author's approach is basically Org-Mode with fewer helpers.

Org-mode's power is that, at core, it's just a text file, with gradual augmentation.

Then again, Org-Mode is a tool you must install, accessible through a limited list of clients (Emacs obviously, but also VSCode), and the power of OP's approach is that it requires no external tools.

[1] https://orgmode.org

This reminds me a lot of [Org Mode](https://orgmode.org/). Do you have plans to add other org-like features, like evaluating code blocks? I don't personally see myself moving away from org-mode, but it would be nice to have something to recommend to people who are reluctant to use emacs, even if it's only for a single application.

If you want to spare a couple of detours, you probably could start with Emacs Org-mode according to Greenspun's eleventh rule: "Any sufficiently complicated PIM or note-taking program contains an ad hoc, informally specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of Org mode."

Wow, no one has recommended Org mode (https://orgmode.org). I started using Emacs nearly 20 years ago specifically because of Org. I use Org for all my static sites, note taking, to-do lists and calendar. Org has a lightweight markup language that has far more features than Markdown (e.g., plain text spreadsheets!), but the markup isn't visible to the extent that Markdown is in most editors. Emacs with Org files behaves almost like a WYSIWYG editor. For example, links in Org files are clickable and their URLs aren't visible unless a cursor is hovered over them. I'm an obsessive note-taker with more than 6,000 Org files in my personal knowledge base and none of the dozens of other note-taking apps that I've evaluated comes even close to Emacs with Org. But to be fair, I create content on Linux only so support for mobile devices doesn't matter to me.

By the way, I think it's hilarious that you mentioned Dreamweaver, dv35z, because I experimented with using Dreamweaver for note-taking in the 90s! I still have a few HTML files that include notes I took back then using Dreamweaver. Needless to say, I definitely prefer Emacs with Org!

Just another reason for one to get into org-mode[1] and org-roam[2].

Combine this with the concept of Zettelkasten[3] and you have a wonderful way to organize and store all your notes and writings, and even a way to know at what point you should move your idea from analog to digital (based on it's maturity, e.g. "evergreen state").

1. https://orgmode.org/