Keeping Personal Cheat Sheets as a Software Engineer

If you like this idea, you might want to check out Cheatography - it&#x27;s a tool for creating stylish cheat sheets. I used it a little when it was first announced, but haven&#x27;t kept up with it. It&#x27;s a great idea, and the developer was really friendly when I was checking it out.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cheatography.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cheatography.com&#x2F;</a>

I&#x27;ve tried this several times, but I always find that by the time I&#x27;ve been stumped by something enough times to write it down, I&#x27;m on the verge of having it learned anyway. So, my cheat sheets just become random bits of paper full of stuff I already know, and I start new ones. Rinse and repeat. It&#x27;s a nifty trick but I don&#x27;t think there&#x27;s any substitute for good ol&#x27; repetition and understanding.

<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mediaatelier.com&#x2F;CheatSheet&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mediaatelier.com&#x2F;CheatSheet&#x2F;</a><p>Hold &#x27;command&#x27; key to see all shortcuts for current application.

I have a git repo with work notes in.<p>It all goes in there:<p><pre><code> root@osboxes:&#x2F;space&#x2F;git&#x2F;work&#x2F;notes# ls | head 7z abs-guide algorithms anacron angularjs ansible ant apache2 apt_and_dpkg </code></pre> 300 folders and counting...

Not quite the same, but similar: Print-to-PDF. I&#x27;ve been doing this instead of bookmarks for years now, and as a result have a huge library of local PDF&#x27;s, usable offline, for all kinds of technologies that I&#x27;m interested in&#x2F;use regularly. With a few key searches I can find all the docs on luarocks, or mysql FAQ&#x27;s, etc. - I find this a great way to have searchable local documentation for the moments I need to look things up. Its not quite a cheat sheet, but having my own local searchable PDF archive for all the technical howto&#x2F;tutorial-style HN articles of interest over the years has been invaluable.

I keep appending to a file in my home directory. I&#x27;ve aliased it too so that I can access it quickly. Every ~month I email it to myself or back it up elsewhere.<p>$ alias ed<p>alias ed=&#x27;$EDITOR ~&#x2F;.diary&quot;<p>The file looks something like this:<p># 4&#x2F;3&#x2F;2015<p>Command Comments<p>-------------------------------------------<p>M-l # Emacs, lowercase next word

Hm. How about a cheat-web-link? This stuff&#x27;s gotta already be online, neatly summarized.

My vim cheatsheet lives in my dotfiles repo. Always gets cloned into a fresh system.