diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..c0c73540 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,51 @@ +# Overview + +This Git repository is an incomplete archive of all my university materials from my BSc in Computer Science & +Information Technology at the University of Galway. +This archive is incomplete because I only began actively archiving in my third year of study, and so materials from +earlier years are generally much less complete or missing entirely. + +1. In first year, I took notes on pen & paper (which are so voluminous that I have no intention of digitising them) and + for reasons that I no longer understand, I deleted all the files related to each assignment once that assignment had + been graded (presumably to free up space on my SSD, despite there being absolutely no shortage). + Because I was still using Windows at this time and therefore was unfamiliar with command-line tools like + [`pdfgrep`](https://pdfgrep.org/), I found it more convenient to concatenate all of the lecture slides for each + module into one or two giant PDF files per module to facilitate easy searching through them, and so all the lecture + slides from this academic year are merged by module. + +2. My approach for semester one of second year was much the same, except I took notes in Markdown using a program + called [Logseq](https://Logseq.com/) and had the foresight to preserve some, but not all, of my assignment files + (generally only those related to code-based assignments). + The "link-based" & "tagging" nature of this note-taking system means that the notes do not follow the same logical + directory structure as the rest of this repository, and is one of the primary reasons why I stopped taking notes + using this tool. + At this point I had switched to [Manjaro Linux](https://manjaro.org/), but I continued to merge the lecture slides + for each module into one giant PDF file. + + In semester two of second year, I switched to [Void Linux](https://voidlinux.org/) and so enacted a far more + terminal-based workflow involving hierarchical directory structures and [Vim](https://www.vim.org/)-based text + editing. + This is the first semester that I seem to have a complete archive of, as I have `Assignment/` directories for each + module. + I also stopped using Logseq and began taking notes in [LaTeX](https://www.latex-project.org/) instead, creating + one large PDF document of notes per module. + Some of the lecture slides from this semester are concatenated into mega-documents, others are not, for reasons I do + not recall. + +3. In third year, I switched to [Arch Linux](https://archlinux.org/) due largely in part to its superior support for + the [Unity3D Game Development Platform](https://unity.com/) which I was required to use for a Game Development + module. + I had originally tried to use it in a [Debian](https://www.debian.org/) virtual machine which only had 4 GiB RAM but + this was insufficient for Unity3D. + This module is solely responsible for why the "Languages" overview of this Github repository states that C# is my + most-used language despite me only having used it for one module: Unity3D generates innumerable C# files, and this + archive contains 3 Unity3D projects (TeX, followed by Java are the truly most used language in this repository). + + My discovery of tools such as `pdfgrep` this academic year put an end to my PDF-merging habit, and so the lecture + slides for this year onwards are not concatenated into giant files by module. + I continued to take LaTeX-based notes for most of semester one, but realised that this was ultimately often less + rewarding for me than to just sit and pay close attention to the content of the lecture, which generally resulted in + better recollection for me, and so many of the notes documents are incomplete. + + I also began committing my university materials to this Git repository at the end of semester one, something that I + really should've been doing since day 1 and something that I can't believe I didn't start doing sooner.