Another Take on Engineering Notebooks:
Kleiman's post can be useful for a wide range of users. The main takeaway, for me at least, is that your tools and specific procedures are not as important as organizing your data and scripts and keeping careful notes on what problem you're trying to solve and the steps you've taken to solve it.
(Via Emacs - Irreal)
Here is the original article that kicked this off. As I've been trying to simplify my workflows to better manage my data my thinking has informally been tending toward what Dan Kleiman wrote. I don't have code any more, replaced by the constant flood of documentation coming my way for various projects. Something like this could would for me with a few small changes.