Hopping back to denote from org-roam again

This is an entry -- actually the very first entry -- from my notes. Because it is a personal note, it lacks background information and tells jokes that only make sense to myself. However, I still want to put it here and hope someone would find it interesting.

My note-taking hopping history since I started using Emacs in 2021.

1. org-roam (1): 2021-10 ~ 2023-08, ~23 months.

   Before org-roam, I was using RoamResearch, which made bidirectional links go viral. I was so into it that I even bought the $500/5yrs believer plan, yet only used it for a year.

   What was wrong with it? Well, it felt like a prototype, not a product, and certainly not one that expensive. It was full of bugs, e.g., not working well with Safari, Rime (the Chinese IME). When you type #define in a C code block, a color picker would appear next to it, because #def could be part of a color code. I sent feedback to the support team, and got the "thank you" response and that was it.

   Then there was org-roam, an alternative to RoamResearch in org-mode, with fewer features, fewer bugs, and no money required. I liked it. Bidirectional links was the only thing I needed from RoamResearch, and org-roam did it well. There was no believer plan for org-roam, but I totally bought it.

   I was happily adding links in my notes all the time, and hoping magic beans would grow out of it someday. It never did. I couldn't find the notes I wanted. The files were scattered all over the place.

   I blamed bidirectional links. I lost faith in them.

2. denote (1): 2023-10 ~ 2025-08, ~23 months

   I came to denote for Prot, whose name is a seal of quality.

   The journey in denote was great. Nothing to complain about. The one major advantage that denote has over org-roam is that I tend to write long, deep articles. Some articles are still being linked to even after I hopped away, e.g., "Minimize clicking artifacts when adjusting audio algorithm parameters".

   So, the question is: why did I hop away anyway? I feel ashamed to admit it: I wanted org-roam-ui.

   I was planning to develop new reverb modules at the time, and wanted to draw a mind map of the open-source reverb libraries. I tried dot from GraphViz and it was fine, but then a thought crossed my mind: hey, why not try org-roam-ui? I tried it, and it does look cool. Then I hopped to org-roam again.

   Sorry, Prot!

3. org-roam (2): 2025-08 ~ 2026-08, ~12 months

   As it turned out, org-roam-ui was only useful once. I don't even remember how many times I have opened it, like five?

   I switched back to my add-link-crazy-mode. Some links do work fine, but most of them are just cosmetic. I once argued that human minds work like graphs, not trees, and therefore that writing hierarchically was not the correct way to take notes -- bidirectional linking was. I was wrong! Human minds are graphs -- that's true. But humans read, learn, and understand things linearly and hierarchically. That's why all textbooks and scientific papers are organized like trees, not graphs.

   I watched some Prot's videos about denote on YouTube, and decided to hop back. Again!

   Hello, Prot!

4. denote (2): 2026-08 ~ <now>

   Denote now has some cool new features, like dynamic blocks. It's actually not a new feature at all, as it has been built into org-mode for a long time. Denote also supports signatures, which can be used to practice the folgezettel scheme from Luhmann. I had tried the Zettelkasten method before, without success, but that's because I was still in human-minds-are-graphs-mode. Now, I think it's time to try it again.

   Luhmann, Prot and I, sitting in a tree!