Devonthink Reconsidered

No, it is not me who is reconsidering Devonthink. Here is how a historian is using it now. But see also here.

The author is "still waiting for the perfect historian’s note-taking software. If only I could combine the advantages of a textbase like DT with the advantages of a relational database (and throw in a bibliographic database like Zotero while we’re at it)."

Well, I am just a historian of philosophy who thinks he has found a good enough textbase in ConnectedText.

As we all know, the perfect is the enemy of the good (enough). As for me "good enough" is good enough. Furthermore, I have the fairly well-founded view that the perfect is not compatible with "the crooked timber of humanity," anyway.[1]


1. Here is how someone else is using Devonthink. What makes my approach different from that of most others I read is that I take notes of the papers and books I read, and do not keep the original PDFs of secondary sources, but just refer to my notes. I rarely consult secondary sources again. If I have to do so, it means that I did not do the job right the first time.