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Emac’s Org Mode will improve your software engineering

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Re: Emac’s Org Mode will improve your software engineering

#62
post #33

I finally got GTD implemented in OneNote. Now you're telling me I now need to move on to Emacs org mode? God, it's like trying to choose a Javascript framework.

Emacs org-mode will be there long after OneNote is gone. And the format is all text. It's a life-long investment.

There are already (to me) very useful places where I can get OneNote where I can't get emacs -- Android and iOS. I don't expect to ever see Emacs on iOS, and I tried it on android but it doesn't work well at all.

Not sure why you think emacs org-mode will be around forever. While I'm sure emacs will be around forever, I've had vim (not emacs, I don't use it I will admit) extensions which rotted as new versions of vim came out.

Re: Emac’s Org Mode will improve your software engineering

#63
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Graphical structures are how the brain works Not my brain. Mine is spacially topographic, and ontologically N-way associative (and, fafaik, ontologies are hierarchical). But I can't think of any way to describe my brain as graphical. What is a graphical structure, btw?

Since this is a computer science (well, sort of..) board, I'm guessing he means 'graph like structures' in the sense that we're taught as first year undergrads -- nodes and edges.

Ah, that makes more sense. That kind of matches my "n-way associative" descriptor.

Re: Emac’s Org Mode will improve your software engineering

#64

I don't know why so many people make the point that hierarchical structures are how the brain works. Graphical structures are how the brain works. The hierarchical structure is how the physical world works (you can't put the same shirt in two closets), and we have an unfortunate habit of trying to force our brain to work the same way, but it's an impedance mismatch. Unless I'm the only one that is frustrated that you…

Emacs / Orgmode can be graphical with tables and inline images: http://orgmode.org/manual/Images-and-tables.html Orgmode tables have let me finally ditch excel for most uses, and bring tables to my Git based workflow. I also like to keep picture mode on, but I am not allergic to trailing white space https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/PictureMode

I use a mind map which is probably equivalent. There's a lot to be said for using a second dimension.

www.drdobbs.com/tools/mind-maps-the-poor-mans-design-tool/240008292

Re: Emac’s Org Mode will improve your software engineering

#65
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Graphical structures are how the brain works Not my brain. Mine is spacially topographic, and ontologically N-way associative (and, fafaik, ontologies are hierarchical). But I can't think of any way to describe my brain as graphical. What is a graphical structure, btw?

Since this is a computer science (well, sort of..) board, I'm guessing he means 'graph like structures' in the sense that we're taught as first year undergrads -- nodes and edges.

I think that would be "graph structures" not "graphical structures"

Re: Emac’s Org Mode will improve your software engineering

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried evil mode with vi bindings? The good thing of org-mode is that it runs locally and through ssh, but any task outliner tool is useful to organize thoughts or tasks.

evil mode is pretty good, but I find that there's a few rough edges. Also, I can't find a good type-ahead search plugin for picking files like in TextMate, Sublime Text, or (my current preferred tool) the Ctrl-P plugin for Vim [0]. [0] https://github.com/ctrlpvim/ctrlp.vim

You didn't search hard enough ;) Really, Ctrl-P is joke to anything compared available in Emacs.

Re: Emac’s Org Mode will improve your software engineering

#67
I built a system to generate SVG burn down charts from Org Mode task lists stored in Git (for historical project data): https://github.com/pjkundert/burndown

It was somewhat useful, but requires regular updates of project status to be checked in; somethings I found challenging to remember to do.

Re: Emac’s Org Mode will improve your software engineering

#68

I don't know why so many people make the point that hierarchical structures are how the brain works. Graphical structures are how the brain works. The hierarchical structure is how the physical world works (you can't put the same shirt in two closets), and we have an unfortunate habit of trying to force our brain to work the same way, but it's an impedance mismatch. Unless I'm the only one that is frustrated that you…

You're right about hierarchy in the world, but there's a deeper truth that you're missing that relates to hierarchical structures being more amenable to description: The fact then that many complex systems have a nearly decomposable, hierarchic structure is a major facilitating factor enabling us to understand, describe, and even "see" such systems and their parts. Or perhaps the proposition should be put the other w…

The observation that hierarchical things are easier to describe is interesting. Maybe it has something to do with the adjointness of syntax and semantics [1], and that posets induced by hierarchical structures just naturally share more structure with our hierarchically-structured languages, so they are easier to glue together with Galois connections.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galois_connection#Syntax_and_s...

Re: Emac’s Org Mode will improve your software engineering

#69

I don't know why so many people make the point that hierarchical structures are how the brain works. Graphical structures are how the brain works. The hierarchical structure is how the physical world works (you can't put the same shirt in two closets), and we have an unfortunate habit of trying to force our brain to work the same way, but it's an impedance mismatch. Unless I'm the only one that is frustrated that you…

hierarchical doesn't imply that every organizes their hierarchies the same. The vegetable counter example is moot.

The brain works in many different ways - I'm sure you're not wrong about the graphical structures being intuitive. But there's a reason why outlining is so ubiquitous in daily life and many professions.

Re: Emac’s Org Mode will improve your software engineering

#70

Do people here have opinions on Workflowy? https://workflowy.com/ As a Vim adherent, I never really got into Org-Mode, but from what I've seen from my Emacs friends, Workflowy seems kinda like Org-Mode Online, but with additional features like being able to share a sublist as a URL (which was noted in this blogpost as a weakness of Org-Mode: "The caveat here is that it’s mostly a one man show."). I use it very much l…

Love workflowy demo which I played with, would prefer it was open source and I could host my own server which is why I do not use it. I was not able to get Hackflowy[0] working well 6 months ago on my debian server... may try again in the near future.

[0]https://github.com/abhshkdz/HackFlowy

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