Org Mode syntax is one of the most reasonable markup languages for text (2017) • Hacker News Board

Re: Org Mode syntax is one of the most reasonable markup languages for text (2017)

#151

Post by fipar » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 9:05 PM UTC

skeledrew wrote: post #100

fipar wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use org a lot, in fact, it's my daily driver. I also have to deal with MySQL, and, if using the vertical output (what you get if you finish a query with '\G' instead of ';' it makes pasting into an org file a pain. Sure, not a big pain, I just wrapped it in a function paste-from-mysql that appends the whitespace, but then I need to take out the whitespace of I want to paste that somewhere else. It would be nice to…

Have you tried literal examples? https://orgmode.org/manual/Literal-Examples.html

Thanks! I had actually seen that, but didn't realize that org does remove the leading comma when you extract a block to paste it somewhere else, which is great, because it means I need one less function.

Now I just need to keep my paste function, but have it add a leading comma instead of a space, and I need to use example instead of src (not a problem for this use case since, even though I normally paste them into sql src blocks, the syntax highlighting isn't that useful.

You gave me a nice little task for a rainy day, thanks :)

Re: Org Mode syntax is one of the most reasonable markup languages for text (2017)

#152

Post by fipar » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 9:12 PM UTC

jameshart wrote: post #109

fipar wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you're building a product for other people like you to use? I think this is very common, like people building tools for trackers vs Ableton/Live/etc style DAWs, or those writing software only targeting the OS they use? Not every product is built with the goal of worldwide adoption. Back to the specific case being discussed, I can easily export usable markdown from org. The people I share it with have never no…

There are whole countries that drive on the left

Yes, though in the case of driving, if I prefer driving on the left, I'd have to move, since I live in a country where you must drive on the right, but to use org-mode instead of markdown, I just ... use org-mode?

I'm afraid I don't understand your point here, sorry.

Re: Org Mode syntax is one of the most reasonable markup languages for text (2017)

#153

Post by stackghost » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 9:13 PM UTC

afroisalreadyin wrote: post #30

skeledrew wrote: post #17

I discovered and started using org-mode (and, as a result, Emacs) when I migrated from Evernote in '16. Today I use it for all my project, task and knowledge management needs, with some files going over 15MB in size. And I'm still loving it. Started out with headers only, and every time I wanted something more, it was always just there for the taking. Easy to use, and also crazy powerful. Can't think of anything else…

I've started using org-mode couple of years ago, and write documents using the basic features like headers and formatting, links between docs, and code sections, but still haven't figured out which power features are the ones worth investing time into, and would be the most useful. Which further features would you recommend digging into, based on your experience?

A lot of the features in org simply aren't adding a ton of utility, IMHO.

If you need to represent tabular data, possibly with rudimentary calucations, in plain text then it's great.

For anything more complex it's best to just reach for Excel.

Re: Org Mode syntax is one of the most reasonable markup languages for text (2017)

#154

Post by jauntywundrkind » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 9:25 PM UTC

dietr1ch wrote: post #96

getnormality wrote: post #80

All well and good, but some Org Mode markup symbols are badly chosen if the purpose is human-to-human communication, and that is a profound demerit for a system that purports to structure and facilitate human-to-human communication. Most notably, asterisks are not good section headers. Pound signs are. So people are not going to switch from Markdown for most purposes. It feels really wrong. And they will generally pr…

What's cool about Org isn't the symbols, but the semantics of a tree with tags, TODOs (along agenda & scheduling), and code blocks. Org had the problem that a single implementation gained too many features and went underspecified, making the language unusable outside of emacs. Markdown has the reverse problem, lots of implementations with variance that leave you with the lowest common denominator (there's specs, but…

Good outline of capabilities; one of the few in the comments! The tree with tags part is super interesting. I'm using beads more and having short codes for tickets is something I want my mark up to be better at, want to integrate.

I thought maybe neorg would be a counter-example, of something compatible. But it is its own format. Which has a specification repo! https://github.com/nvim-neorg/norg-specs/blob/main/1.0-speci...

Re: Org Mode syntax is one of the most reasonable markup languages for text (2017)

#155

Post by kleinishere » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 9:32 PM UTC

cyrialize wrote: post #147

I've been using Org Mode for organizing my life in plain text for the past 10 years now. Beorg on iOS [0] makes it great. I've also started using things like org-ql [1] and org-super-agenda [2] to make me even more productive. I also have a daily log org file I use at work. It helps me keep track of what I need to do and what I've done. It makes yearly reviews easier as well! [0]: https://www.beorgapp.com/ [1]: https…

I’ve looked into a log/journal date tree approach with my various activities across the day (meeting notes, independent work notes, etc) under the date. But then I prefer being able to look through headings that anchor on context first, then dates second (/eventually).

Does your daily log link to other parts of one org file, or other org files?

I’ve asked LLMs their opinions. But curious for yours!

Also thinking about trying denote. The filenames begin with dates, then use tags/keywords to keep the thread on recurring topics.

Re: Org Mode syntax is one of the most reasonable markup languages for text (2017)

#156

Post by kleinishere » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 9:40 PM UTC

xenodium wrote: post #69

hahajk wrote: post #11

For me the thing keeping me on markdown is Obsidian on mobile - no other note taking app comes close. If they made an actual Emacs for mobile (actual emacs complete with elisp support, not the existing org mode apps) that was a pleasure to use, I would likely switch to that. As it is, the * vs # for headings makes switching between the two uncomfortable.

I’ve built a handful of org based iOS apps. While my initial intention was to bring as much org support to iOS as possible ( https://plainorg.com ), my thinking evolved over time and I gravitated towards a different kind of mobile-optimised experience, and so https://journelly.com was born. I’ve recently added Markdown support too https://xenodium.com/journelly-1-3-released I use Journelly the most and is also my mos…

Happy Journelly user here! Finally a great place to store notes/links on my iPhone in a simple but powerful app for rediscovery. That I can bring to my windows / Linux / Mac eMacs.

Re: Org Mode syntax is one of the most reasonable markup languages for text (2017)

#157

Post by IshKebab » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 9:43 PM UTC

vga42 wrote: post #148

IshKebab wrote: post #108

Hmm with the way people go on about it I always assumed there was more to Org mode than "Markdown for Emacs", but this post makes it sound exactly like that. He's also not exactly gaining credibility with "Markdown is useless because it's not standardised; there are lots of slightly different implementations"... Well yeah that's mildly annoying but it's still very useful! And then he completely throws away all credib…

>Can anyone tell me an actual reason to use Org mode over Markdown? I think the reason in general is simply that org-mode is better, i.e. more carefully defined. I'll mention the things I like more specifically: - Link syntax in markdown is something I never remember how it goes. Org-mode is [[link][description]]. - Text styles in org-mode make more sense. In markdown, * is used for italics, * for bold. Additionally,…

> Link syntax in markdown is something I never remember how it goes

I can remember it fairly easily. [Link](url). Very unconvinced by this.

> Text styles in org-mode make more sense. In markdown, * is used for italics, * for bold. Additionally, * is for lists, which might be confusing.

* for lists is what I would naturally use so I think that's better than - (but Markdown actually supports both). I'll give you * for italics though. Definitely should have been bold.

> - Markdown blocks are freaking awful and seem to work by luck more than anything else. Code blocks even worse -- they are made by indenting 4 spaces or a tab! I couldn't come up with a worse way to do that even if I tried. Org-mode has clear #BEGIN_xxx / #END_xxx blocks.

Sorry but there's no way #BEGIN_xxx is better than ``` or 4-space indent.

> Markdown has a weird YAML frontmatter syntax.

It doesn't. That's some extension. Maybe Pandoc?

> Org-mode has tags.

Yeah they look kind of useful.

> Org-mode has timestamps.

Can't say I've ever remotely wanted that feature...

Overall it seems like a wash.

Re: Org Mode syntax is one of the most reasonable markup languages for text (2017)

#158

Post by iLemming » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 10:09 PM UTC

drob518 wrote: post #55

binary132 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think anyone who gets really familiar with org can ever honestly say with a straight face that Markdown is adequate in comparison.

“Adequate” is a very relative term. Adequate for what? The fact that Markdown is widely used quite successfully demonstrates that it is adequate for a wide variety of tasks. Yes, Org mode might cover more of the long tail, but Markdown clearly covers all the important cases to the point that it has achieved wide adoption.

> it is adequate for a wide variety of tasks

Is it though? Like for example, I often deal with Org-mode documents of several thousand lines of text and I honestly don't know any piece of software that can acceptably handle multi-thousand lines of markdown.

Emacs/Org-mode has tons of different ways to navigate and search through these large bodies - the outline nature of the structure is perfect for that - there's narrowing, collapsing/expanding, sparse-tree search, flexible sorting, indirect buffers, imenu, overlays and text properties that can render the text conditionally, etc.

I read HN and Reddit threads in Org-mode format¹; I browse my Jira board and tickets in Org-mode², I have Wiktionary lookup³ and Thesaurus⁴ - all in Org-mode.

¹ https://youtu.be/ud3Gmxg5UZg

² https://github.com/agzam/go-jira.el

³ https://github.com/agzam/wiktionary-bro.el

⁴ https://github.com/agzam/mw-thesaurus.el

Comparing Org-mode and Markdown and saying "Markdown is widely used [and thus it's better]" is wildly immature - popularity doesn't determine fitness for purpose - PHP is more widely used than Rust or Zig, but that doesn't make it "better" for systems programming.

I can agree, Markdown is adequate for relatively small documents like README files, but it's nowhere close to even try to compete with Org-mode in so many different aspects far beyond just the markdown format structure.

Re: Org Mode syntax is one of the most reasonable markup languages for text (2017)

#159

Post by cyrialize » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 10:19 PM UTC

kleinishere wrote: post #155

cyrialize wrote: post #147

I've been using Org Mode for organizing my life in plain text for the past 10 years now. Beorg on iOS [0] makes it great. I've also started using things like org-ql [1] and org-super-agenda [2] to make me even more productive. I also have a daily log org file I use at work. It helps me keep track of what I need to do and what I've done. It makes yearly reviews easier as well! [0]: https://www.beorgapp.com/ [1]: https…

I’ve looked into a log/journal date tree approach with my various activities across the day (meeting notes, independent work notes, etc) under the date. But then I prefer being able to look through headings that anchor on context first, then dates second (/eventually). Does your daily log link to other parts of one org file, or other org files? I’ve asked LLMs their opinions. But curious for yours! Also thinking abou…

My daily log file basically looks like this:

* Year

* Month

** Day

For example: * 2025

* January

** Saturday 01/10/26

In each day heading I'll have either a short note (like saying what meeting happened), or a link to a separate org file.

I keep an org file for each JIRA ticket I'm working on, so I'll link it out there. The presence of a link indicates that I've worked on that ticket that day.

Then in each individual ticket file I'll just keep top level day headings with notes of what I've done on the ticket, as well as other headings.

For example, an org file for a ticket would look something like:

* PR 1

#+BEGIN_SRC markdown

I like to pre-write up my PRs in a doc block in markdown in org mode just to use my keybindings. I copy-paste when I create a PR.

#+END

* Monday 01/01/26

- Started work on this today, figuring out where in the codebase to touch

- Straightforward, got a PR out

When I need to find something, I use something like consult-org-heading or consult-outline or consult-line.

Re: Org Mode syntax is one of the most reasonable markup languages for text (2017)

#160

Post by otikik » Sat, Jan 10, 2026, 10:20 PM UTC

It would get more adoption if it wasn’t tied to the waist to emacs.

Markdown doesn’t require Vim.