[qznc]

I mostly agree.

Recently I started with the Zettelkasten approach (120 notes now), so not much experience yet. I did not use something like this for my phd thesis. Thinking back, I don't think it would have helped significantly because computer science works differently than the humanities.

What works very well is to use Zettelkasten as the next step after taking notes from reading book, blog posts, and articles to collect your personal insights. Probably also from movies, podcasts, whatever.

I believe Zettelkasten will help me with writing for my own blog and when I'm collecting information for personal projects. In both cases, I have lots of ideas which are not fully formed yet to be published or implemented. With a job and a family there is little time to pursue it, so I have to work in little steps. Externalizing this ideas is essential and a very-hyperlinked style like Zettelkasten seems to fit well.

For learning little facts about programming languages, spaced repetition is probably more suitable.