There should be as little friction as possible between the act of writing and the act of publishing. Notational velocity is essential, publicational velocity is paramout:
- You cannot hide clutter on a web browser;
- Publishing gives you a broader perspective. Being able to navigate through one’s notes in a browser gives a perspective that you cannot get in a text editor. This is not just about finding typos or adding a few links, but about breaking down notes, merging some ideas, and sometimes gettings new ideas. It helps you write better notes.
- Publishing is rewarding. It helps create a habit: the more you publish the more you will want to write.
- Progress is better measured in small chunks, and published notes are proofs of your thinking evolving.
Publishing the typical set
Here are the steps that I will follow after I am done typing these words:
- Save the file
:wq - Open Magit
<SPC> g g - Stage the changes
S - Commit the changes
c c - Enter a commit message
- Push the commit to Github
p p
That’s all! Github then builds the website from the org files automatically. I use git only to be able to publish the website easily, and prevent conflicts. The commits do not mean anything as units; I could write some elisp to commit and push automatically but I do like a little friction in the process.