A few days ago, I’ve decided to start logging my rowing sessions. I disliked the idea of keeping the log on paper, so I’ve looked into a computerized solution. I ruled out Concept2’s online log book because I wanted something private that wouldn’t require me to register on yet another website (and sometimes internet access at my rowing club is broken). Soon, I’ve decided to manage the log using TiddlyWiki, a client-side HTML+JS wiki, which I wrote about in the past. It has some nice features:
1. It fits in a single self-contained file that is perfect to put on a USB stick.
2. It has built-in search features.
3. It allows great flexibility in how to log my sessions – there is no predefined format that I need to struggle to fit my sessions into.
The TiddlyWiki solution seemed great, and I’ve started using it. But as the title says, I merely overlooked a much simpler, yet equally powerful, solution – a simple text file. Porting my rowing log to a simple, old-fashioned text file provided me with all the relevant features of TiddlyWiki, such as search, flexibility, and working from a USB stick, while using less space and being editable using a basic text editor (or the powerful vim). Using reStructured Text, I got a nice readable journal that can later be processed into even nicer-looking HTML files.
We all want to believe that we know how to match the right tool to a task. But maybe, because we tend to adopt newer technologies and utilities all the time (because for a lot of tasks they do provide better tools), we end up overlooking simpler, “old-fashioned” solutions. If I take a moment now to look around, I can come up with several other places where new stuff is used instead of simpler solutions. Take a look around you, and I’m sure that you will be able to find some too.