I’ve been full-out making for about twenty months (as I count them). As I get deeper into building more complex projects based on microcontrollers, bare chips or purchased boards; 3D printing; PCB design, manufacture, and assembly; or cardboard, paper, and cloth, I have to keep adjusting how I organize code, projects, and builds.
Notes
Early on I realized I needed to be better at taking notes. I went a few months just slapping things together and not keeping decent notes for when I had to return to a project, either to adjust something or borrow or learn something off of it. That was embarrassing, as I’m an ex-scientist, and I even have a log for my beer brewing and running that go back many years.
The trigger here was having to go back to a project (the one that set off my maker-mania), both for a derivative build, and to document things to hand it to others (work project – great to be paid to mess with these things).
So I started being better at taking lab notes (using Evernote) with sources, images, commentary, sometimes code snippets, and lots of images. As I was trained to do decades ago.
Code
I had been doing the manual keeping track of code and code versions, afraid to use Git. Tho, a few months ago, I buckled down and learned how to use it. The real trigger was when I found out that Github can do versioning of KiCad.
Alas, I could do better here and using Github made me realize one other organizational change I must do.
Project-based
Most of my projects so far have been pretty contained – either all coded in Arduino, or CircuitPython; or a badge in KiCad. When I started making folders for projects, I kept them separated in those big categories, even if there were two parts.
But it was clear that most of my projects are a mix of 3D models, code, and PCB design. In silos was not how I built my projects. Indeed, for some time now I’ve been keeping all the physical elements of the projects in project boxes. Why not the digital components as well? Also, I realized that if I were to get the best out of GitHub, I’d be better off separating things out by project (say, PCB and code).
Note, most of the software I use like to have default project or sketch or code folders. That’s malarkey. They all do fine (as far as I can tell) with project folders anywhere accessible.
So my next biggest change moving forward is to group, best as can be, all digital elements of my project into one folder. And likely the folders will have a one-to-one correspondence with my lab book, as I usually do one note for one project.
Keeping unified project folders may seem elementary to you. But when one goes so long with a wonky filing system, you don’t feel it until you’ve done enough work that the wonky system gets in the way of finding or tracking what you are working on.
Yeah.
Future
Rearranging past project files for better management is a pain. Always best when doing it moving forward; alas, leaving a trail of loosely organized stuff at each re-org. Oh, well.
But now that I have note-taking in place, am ramping up GitHub usage, and realize I need to group digital elements by project, I expect smoother project management.
Until the next big re-org need.
As for that: Next for me is to sort out how to manage the inventory and physical arrangement of all my components, chips, boards, and supplies. I had a simple system of boxes and drawers and memory, but, as I do more and buy more (yes, we all know that problem), I’m running up against many physical and mental barriers.
Let’s see.
In parting, I’d ask you how you organize your project elements, but everyone is different, so, as they say, YMMV. But tips and insight is alway welcome.
Cheers.
Image from LOSTMIND
