Clarifying prototype

This evening I was listening to CGP Grey’s humorously profound discovery of note-taking in Atomic Notes. In it he is discussing with Myke the reassessment of his note taking habits in light of a research snafu in one of his recent videos. Although it’s an interesting journey for its own sake, my ears perked up when he mentioned that he was using paper (for some things) to try to clarify his system before attempting to lock down on a specific software implementation or tool.

It’s probably also partly because I feel guilty for having made almost no progress on this project, but a couple thoughts came to mind when thinking about his interest in using a prototype to flesh out a system:

• One of the reasons why I like the idea of using Python for this is because it’s -much- quicker to iterate on ideas. (I was recently updating some C code for another project, and compiling adds so much friction to the process.) Yes, iterating a GUI with Python may not be as quick as with Smalltalk, but I don’t know Smalltalk.
• I like the idea of treating this phase of the project not as an alpha/beta version of the final tool, but as a chance to explore all the functionality. Although it -could- possibly mean a rewrite at some point, it frees me from worrying about trying to cast a net to the widest audience now; I’m trying to prove the idea and explore the possibilities.

This second point should be the motivating force to get going; I’ll never know where this will work better than I expect, or fail in ways I don’t expect, until I can actually use the tool.