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Org Mode – Organize Your Life in Plain Text

doc.norang.ca

131–140 of 238 posts

Re: Org Mode – Organize Your Life in Plain Text

#131

I see a lot of comments arguing that it's not "worth it" to spend dozens of hours to "get into org-mode" when there are "intuitive tools" such as Evernote or Trello or Todoist etc. What some are missing is the fact that low barriers to entry sometimes turn into barriers to growth at a later stage. After (!) one has sunk thousands of hours into them. I used to keep my academic notes in Evernote and it turned into hell…

Also, people forget that their favourite SaaS-du-jour probably won't be around after their "Incredible Journey" ends and there won't be a migration path, or it's going to cost too many hours to be worth it. Emacs will be here for us in the next decades, even well after our career ends, and then some.

And if needed, we'll migrate to it. Meanwhile, any SaaS-du-jour that actually has data export does the job right now. I'm more interested in moving forward than in noodling on a system that, once it will be completed, will maybe help me make progress on my actual goals.

They also don't give me RSI, which is a welcome change from emacs.

Re: Org Mode – Organize Your Life in Plain Text

#133

I see a lot of comments arguing that it's not "worth it" to spend dozens of hours to "get into org-mode" when there are "intuitive tools" such as Evernote or Trello or Todoist etc. What some are missing is the fact that low barriers to entry sometimes turn into barriers to growth at a later stage. After (!) one has sunk thousands of hours into them. I used to keep my academic notes in Evernote and it turned into hell…

Here were my "sunk costs" of org-mode. 1) org-mode makes a bad spreadsheet 2) No good Android interface, Orgzly is OK, but doesn't do advanced features and often crashed for me. 3) Despite lots of trying, I couldn't get "into" using the Emacs shortcut keys, which are different to every other application on Windows. 4) I like variable width fonts, and variable width fonts don't seem to work with various bits of org mo…

For 3 -- I've always been a vim user, and I know maybe 3-4 native Emacs hotkeys, thanks to evil-mode. Also Spacemacs/Doom emacs provides a reasonable layer of bindings outside org-mode

Re: Org Mode – Organize Your Life in Plain Text

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides "yank," calling alt "Meta" is another silly thing, too. And yes, I'm aware of the reasons. It's still silly in 2020, as was discussed in the recent HN topic on why Emacs isn't attracting new users.

if you happen to remember the headline title on that, i'd be interested to read about why Emacs isn't attracting new users. in the last year i know two new developers who have written their own emacs configs.

I suspect it was this piece:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23107123

Re: Org Mode – Organize Your Life in Plain Text

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, people forget that their favourite SaaS-du-jour probably won't be around after their "Incredible Journey" ends and there won't be a migration path, or it's going to cost too many hours to be worth it. Emacs will be here for us in the next decades, even well after our career ends, and then some.

I've tried org-mode a few times, but I just couldn't get over emacs and the mobile app situation. For now I've settled on Apple Notes which works well with the iPad and pencil across all of my devices. I also use Drafts for longer form writing. The downside is that I'm trapped in Apple's ecosystem, but I'm already deeply there so I might as well embrace it.

There are now several solutions for org-mode on mobile. Organice, beorg, org-web, Orgzly etc.

Re: Org Mode – Organize Your Life in Plain Text

#137
Former org-mode user here. One of the anti-features of emacs/org-mode for certain people, particularly those who get obsessed with tooling, travel down technology rabbitholes, and are subject to crippling bouts of procrastination, is the extensibility and the common paradigm that one should do everything in emacs.

Ultimately, I switched to using specific tools for specific tasks. For example, I found Zotero a much better way of managing research, while still allowing export to BibTeX.

I still can organize in plain text, I just avoid getting tripped up with endless tool maintenance and customization.

Re: Org Mode – Organize Your Life in Plain Text

#138
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they were being completely facetious. That said, I also think requiring it be "in process" is unnecessary. One of the most powerful features of org is babel, which clearly pushes out the execution to the external tools.

> That said, I also think requiring it be "in process" is unnecessary. No, this is important for integration. Integration is the main benefit you have while using emacs. > One of the most powerful features of org is babel, which clearly pushes out the execution to the external tools. Yes, but it has very limited interaction with them. The whole interface is in emacs. Emacs is doing many of this embedded fire n' forge…

In this, I just disagree. Yes, I agree that emacs main strength is that everything is programmable. No, I don't mind that I have to reach out to other computers/programs for some things to happen.

If anything, I think I dislike the other tools so much because they do fall into the trap of requiring all things be in process. I think that is a huge reason that they don't focus as much on the serialization of their data in a friendly way.

That is to say, if other programs worked harder (or at all) at making themselves programmable, their programs could force a form of stability that is unheard of in many of them. And then I could happily control them from emacs. :D

Re: Org Mode – Organize Your Life in Plain Text

#139
post #43

Org Mode keeps being pushed again and again, but honestly this title is one of the boldest claims I've seen about it. Just look at the document. It's a 400+kb HTML page of Emacs configurations, keybindings and other stuff that makes absolutely no sense unless you've been an avid Emacs user for years. Where is the Plain Text here? I see nothing of the sort. Sure, the output might resemble Plain Text, but it's clearly…

If you use any of the Emacs hosted mail readers, org-mode is tremendously useful for tracking actions/TODOs. I use it with GNUS and the org agenda mode is how I organize my work (enterprise sales). It was a game-changer for me.

I have been using Emacs/Orgmode for a year. Can you point me to a setup/configuration about your workflow? I am in enterprise sales too. Thanks much

Re: Org Mode – Organize Your Life in Plain Text

#140

I see a lot of comments arguing that it's not "worth it" to spend dozens of hours to "get into org-mode" when there are "intuitive tools" such as Evernote or Trello or Todoist etc. What some are missing is the fact that low barriers to entry sometimes turn into barriers to growth at a later stage. After (!) one has sunk thousands of hours into them. I used to keep my academic notes in Evernote and it turned into hell…

You hit the nail on the head. A well designed system has coherent building blocks. When you scale that up, you don't end up with a rat's nest. Funny you should mention Evernote. I'm building https://histre.com/ as the said coherent alternative to it (among other reasons), as Evernote truly turns into a hoarder house after a while.

I'm a big org-mode user as well, and that solves most of the "write stuff down for later" needs for me.

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