Interesting. I've had FreeMind installed on one of my systems for probably a year and never really got around to using it.
With regards to using it to improve programming performance, I think you say near the end of the article that this will not make someone a star overnight. And I agree. In fact, I'll say that this will not make you a 10x programmer, period. Not without the algorithmic foundation and experience that a 10x programmer (whatever that is) has to have.
I am not criticizing your article at all. I think you could be onto something here. I just want to point out that there's far more that goes into being a good programmer than being able to navigate documentation quickly. I think you allude to that in your article when you talk about the mind map exposing you to peripheral entries every time you use it.
I suppose a map could be used to log and accumulate knowledge on other areas equally important to programming. Algorithms and patterns is what comes to mind.
There was a recent HN discussion on data representation as an important element of writing good programs. I find this is a critical difference between a good (and experienced) programmer and a newbie or intermediate programmer. The experienced programmer is at a point where he/she almost intuitively understands which representations might offer an advantage. This sort of thing only comes with experience --writing a lot of code and learning from your mistakes. I'd be interested in your thoughts in how you might approach encoding such knowledge into a mind map.
I watch a lot of documentaries and presentations. Sometimes I wish I could capture the important points in some fashion in order to develop a database of knowledge, if you will, for future reference. In the past I've tried doing a text file for each documentary. You could keep them all nicely sorted and search the files for keywords. It really hasn't worked that well. I wonder if mind maps is what I've been looking for?
Finally, I wonder if mind maps is the best way to document and manage ideas? I can see that one might be able to find relationships and synergies by exploring a map. This is a case where I have consistently used text files to log ideas and related links, text, etc. I now have hundreds of these files. It's at the point where the directories that contain them are impossible to view and get a sense of what is there. This meaning that you can't see 300+ file names and easily understand and/or explore the concepts within them and relating them. Do you (or anyone reading this, of course) have any experience managing such information using mind maps?
With regards to using it to improve programming performance, I think you say near the end of the article that this will not make someone a star overnight. And I agree. In fact, I'll say that this will not make you a 10x programmer, period. Not without the algorithmic foundation and experience that a 10x programmer (whatever that is) has to have.
I am not criticizing your article at all. I think you could be onto something here. I just want to point out that there's far more that goes into being a good programmer than being able to navigate documentation quickly. I think you allude to that in your article when you talk about the mind map exposing you to peripheral entries every time you use it.
I suppose a map could be used to log and accumulate knowledge on other areas equally important to programming. Algorithms and patterns is what comes to mind.
There was a recent HN discussion on data representation as an important element of writing good programs. I find this is a critical difference between a good (and experienced) programmer and a newbie or intermediate programmer. The experienced programmer is at a point where he/she almost intuitively understands which representations might offer an advantage. This sort of thing only comes with experience --writing a lot of code and learning from your mistakes. I'd be interested in your thoughts in how you might approach encoding such knowledge into a mind map.
I watch a lot of documentaries and presentations. Sometimes I wish I could capture the important points in some fashion in order to develop a database of knowledge, if you will, for future reference. In the past I've tried doing a text file for each documentary. You could keep them all nicely sorted and search the files for keywords. It really hasn't worked that well. I wonder if mind maps is what I've been looking for?
Finally, I wonder if mind maps is the best way to document and manage ideas? I can see that one might be able to find relationships and synergies by exploring a map. This is a case where I have consistently used text files to log ideas and related links, text, etc. I now have hundreds of these files. It's at the point where the directories that contain them are impossible to view and get a sense of what is there. This meaning that you can't see 300+ file names and easily understand and/or explore the concepts within them and relating them. Do you (or anyone reading this, of course) have any experience managing such information using mind maps?