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All right, hello everyone.
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Today, I'm going to talk about programming logbooks and how to use logbooks in the context of software development.
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My name is Robson Port, and I'm a web developer at a company called Loft 47, which is a tech company focused on real estate and accounting.
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This talk and the process I'm going to describe are highly inspired by a blog post from James Routley called 'Using a Logbook to Improve Your Programming.' If you're interested in this methodology, you can Google that after this talk.
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First things first, what is a logbook? A logbook is a personal and professional reference mainly used by engineers for everything related to a project. While it may seem like a simple notebook on the right-hand side, today we have more modern solutions that I will demonstrate shortly.
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Logbooks are useful for software development in several ways, but I will describe just three main uses. They can help with dividing and conquering tasks by breaking big problems into smaller, more manageable ones. Logbooks also help to reduce context switching between tasks and create an audit trail for you and your team.
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How do I use a logbook? I start by writing down the initial problem or the implementation that needs to be done. Then, as I debug or implement the feature, I document the causes of the issues or details about the implementation. Finally, after I finish working on a feature or a bug, I write down my discoveries, detailing what worked, what didn't, the implications of the changes, and so on.
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As a quick example, you can use pen and paper or a simple notebook. However, I prefer to use the Joplin app. It's open-source, free, and multi-platform software that I highly recommend. You can use whatever tool works best for you. In my logbook, for instance, I created a new notebook called 'Rob's Logbook.' Each entry in my logbook serves as a reference, usually containing a brief description of the problem or implementation I want to work on, alongside a ticket ID from our ticket management system.
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Inside the logbook, I like to create timestamps for each discovery I make related to a problem. For example, if I start with a hypothesis about a device issue and later confirm or disprove it, I document that process. This helps in tracing back the steps I took to find a solution. In the last entry, I conclude my findings and articulate my solution based on the insights gained throughout the debugging process.
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Thank you for your attention.