:PROPERTIES:
:ID:       9a11ef31-b2a7-43a9-a7a9-48f191838c6e
:END:
#+title: Prefer referencing over remembering
#+date: "2021-04-06 22:25:17 +08:00"
#+date_modified: "2022-04-01 16:26:08 +08:00"
#+language: en
#+tags: personal-info-management


It makes for less cognitive overhead.
This is especially true in the age of internet where information is widely distributed.
Even without the internet, however, it is still useful to find ways to refer to things or store them locally whether by roam:Archiving or [[id:0d2264a6-e487-4761-818a-d17d2833120f][Note-taking]].

This doesn't mean that you should avert remembering, that would be silly as [[id:c0e4fb0e-68f2-4db4-8c3e-f5a7845738c3][Understanding comes first from memory]].
You're still trying to understand a concept, after all.
The gist of it is knowing the basics of a concept and its relations to others,
[[id:df20e58b-6d38-4ace-8468-413bc708c772][Most of the work is done from smaller amount of effort]].
This enables you to come up with a more effective search query.
If nothing else, you could take advantage of the help system insisted by the tool.

Here are some examples:

- Leave links to official documentations and guides instead of writing detailed notes for yourself.

- On a Unix-based environment, for example, has the manual pages with ~man~ and you can search through ~apropos~.
  This is especially needed if you're using BSD-based operating systems such as FreeBSD and OpenBSD.

- [[https://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/][Texinfo]] and [[https://github.com/tldr-pages/tldr][tldr pages]].

- Remembering to use the help system of the tools if available.
  For example, [[id:0efb9c51-3a12-4e5a-9e9b-d48cf4bd53ce][Using the built-in help system of Emacs]] or [[id:0a0fe63e-dcf3-4928-9e82-5513784c1244][Neovim help system]].

- [[id:ea263f6f-fa8e-4e6d-a585-d30d493d1e3c][Add a desktop search engine for your digital library]].

- Referring to official documentation and tools (e.g., [[https://devdocs.io/][DevDocs]], [[https://zealdocs.org/][Zeal]]).

- Making full use of search tools from programs such as the command palette in [[roam:Visual Studio Code]], help system in Microsoft Word, and dynamic menus in roam:Blender.
