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

karl-voit.at

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

#211

Post by vishnuharidas »

al_borland wrote: post #169
vishnuharidas wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've driven both. Drove LHD for more than a decade in India. Now driving in RHD country for 2y now. Personally, I enjoy RHD more because I am right-handed and I get to do things easily with my RH. Otherwise, I realized that safety benefits comes from the driving discipline and not driving on a particular side of the road. Driving on Aus/Japan is way safer than India, despite all of them being LHD.

How does RHD make it easier to do things with your right hand? I’m right-handed in a LHD country, and this means I used my right hand for almost everything. The gear selector, radio, climate controls, GPS… all done with my right hand. My left hand controls the turn signal, that’s about it. I think I’d have a very hard time with a RHD car where I need to be precise with buttons and touch screens using my left hand.

I mistakenly mixed up the abbreviations - it is "Right Hand Traffic"/RHT (which is "Left Hand Driving"/LHD).

Like you said, I enjoy LHD more where I can use my right hand for everything like radio/AC/GPS etc. and most of them work with muscle memory without even taking eyes off the road. Doing the same with my left hand while driving in India (LHT/RHD) is very tough.

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

#212

Post by emil-lp »

erichocean wrote: post #89
beej71 wrote: post #84

I use Markdown for all my books, currently. It used to be a custom XML format, but that was really annoying to type even with custom Vim keybindings. I do wish Markdown were more capable, but it's a good lowest common denominator for HTML and PDF. Also Pandoc-flavored markdown is pretty decent. My current flow is: Markdown -> preprocess -> pandoc -> HTML Markdown -> preprocess -> pandoc -> HTML -> page-splitter -> sp…

Repo is nice, thanks. Small nit: it would be nice to have included the final PDF output of your tool on `test.md` in the repo.

That's not a "nit", that's a request, and for someone with the same process, it would be really annoying.

There's a reason you don't want generated data under version control.

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

#213

Post by binary132 »

KarlVoit wrote: post #204
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.

I did and I mentioned very particular reasons and arguments. You posted an opinion. Now, I'm very curious how you came to your conclusion: was is adequate? How to you compare? Did you read the article and got the reasons mentioned why MD can be problematic?

I suspect you’re replying to a different poster, but I agree with the premise of the article. I’m saying the elemental features of Org syntax are much better.

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

#214

Post by tapete1 »

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.

> The fact that Markdown is widely used quite successfully demonstrates that it is adequate for a wide variety of tasks. Just because $x is used for lots of tasks does not mean that it is adequate for that. People use Excel for lots of tasks that it is clearly not adequate for; (like time tracking). I knew someone who wrote his letters with Excel.

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

#215

Post by 827a »

iLemming wrote: post #209
827a wrote: post #125

The only reason why Org mode doesn’t have twenty variants like Markdown is because no one uses it.

Sure - florists, influencers and soccer moms don't use Org-mode. Real hackers do, because it is extremely developer-oriented. And of course it won't ever be more popular, simply because there are far more soccer moms in the world and not too many hackers.

To be clear: I mean "no one uses org mode" hyperbolically, but there's a causative reason why markdown's popularity has led to twenty variants: When a ton of people use anything, it often needs to be tweaked to fit many different use-cases. If orgmode had the popularity that markdown had, it would also have twenty variants; its characteristic of being highly consistent is not a reflection of some internal design or authority that aligns it toward consistency; its a reflection of dispopularity.

I am aware of no evidence supporting the claim that orgmode is more developer-oriented than markdown. It is identical to markdown in ~80% of the formatting directives people widely use. The remaining ~20% are mostly stylistic choices (would you rather hit the # key or the % key). Most of the unique capabilities orgmode offers (e.g. programming language syntax highlighting) are functionally covered by popular markdown extensions available everywhere someone interacting with markdown would work (e.g. Github, Obsidian).

This is a religious war, not engineering. Use what works for you.

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

#216

Post by iLemming »

827a wrote: post #215
iLemming wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure - florists, influencers and soccer moms don't use Org-mode. Real hackers do, because it is extremely developer-oriented. And of course it won't ever be more popular, simply because there are far more soccer moms in the world and not too many hackers.

To be clear: I mean "no one uses org mode" hyperbolically, but there's a causative reason why markdown's popularity has led to twenty variants: When a ton of people use anything, it often needs to be tweaked to fit many different use-cases. If orgmode had the popularity that markdown had, it would also have twenty variants; its characteristic of being highly consistent is not a reflection of some internal design or a…

This isn't a "religious war", because similarities of Markdown and Org-mode are only superficial, once you learn more about the differences, you will see what actually makes Org-mode much, much different.

- Org's outline is semantic - the nesting IS the data structure. You can collapse/expand, refile, navigate as a tree natively. Markdown treats `#` markers as decoration on top of flat text.

- Org drawers, properties, timestamps are integrated. Markdown frontmatter is bolted on.

- Org has in-buffer table editing. Markdown tables are write-once text blobs.

- Org can execute code blocks and weave results back into the document. Markdown extensions can display code, but they don't integrate execution.

- Org can track what links to what, rename headings and update links automatically.

Your claim of the "20% stylistic" is just wrong - those feature differences aren't cosmetic - they do change how you use the tool for knowledge work.

> If orgmode had the popularity that markdown had, it would also have twenty variants

Org-mode does have fragmentation - it's just vertical (depth of features) rather than horizontal (incompatible variants) - Org-Roam, Howm, Denote, et al.

Org-mode is less "one format" and more "a Lisp-cursed toolkit where everyone assembles their own variant through configuration" The Markdown variants are at least standardized incompatibility - you kinda know what GFM does. With Org, you don't really know what someone's personal setup supports until you try it.

If Org-mode had GitHub's reach and people were pushing personal variants of the spec onto the web, you'd absolutely see 20+ "Org-flavored Markdown" projects. The consistency is partly an accident of Org being the domain of power users who configure rather than fork.

There's no "causative reason" for why markdown is more popular than Org - the entire argument is just nonsense. Nobody in the right mind (with the proper Org-mode experience) would ever argue "which is better". It's like arguing LaTeX vs. Word - LaTeX is clearly technically superior for certain tasks, even though Word won institutional dominance - but only those who have very little exposure to LaTeX would argue that "Word's popularity proves it's better designed...", or something.

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

#217

Post by iLemming »

drob518 wrote: post #165
iLemming wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 nar…

That’s awesome. Clearly, you are an Org format rockstar. But be that as it may, if Markdown is inadequate for a variety of tasks, why do people use it for a variety of tasks? Your rebuttal is just “Here’s a task or two that I do that I think Org format is better for.” Fine. I don’t have an opinion about your tasks. I believe you that Org is better for those for you. But neither do those cases rebut the fact that MANY…

> Can Org do more than those things? Surely. But so can Markdown.

It just cannot, because THAT'S THE POINT - it is by design. You guys with little or no exposure to Org-mode keep arguing that Markdown somehow can be replacement or be a "better" version of Org-mode. Well, IT CANNOT. Period!

That is because they have different design goals, different applications and different use-cases. I would love to use Markdown if it was clearly sufficient for the things I do - well, it is not! Do I then curse and abandon Markdown? No, of course - I would not. It still useful for certain tasks. Just because it's used for a variety of tasks, it doesn't mean it can replace Org-mode anytime soon. Just like MS Word format can't and never would replace LaTeX or PDF.

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

#218

Post by iLemming »

rspoerri wrote: post #7

If org more was as successful as markdown it would likely also have a lot of unstandardized additions.

Org-mode does have certain fragmentation - every Emacs config for Org-mode is different from another - there are entire packages built on top (and they drastically can change the behavior of entire system) - Org-Roam, Howm, Denote, Org-supertag, etc. Also, for what it is made for, Org-mode is widely successful - there's really not a single contender that can be used alternatively, there's literally no good replacement for it.

Comparing Markdown and Org-mode really makes no sense - different ideas, with different design goals, use cases and applications.

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

#219

Post by adityaathalye »

da_chicken wrote: post #205
adityaathalye wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure... I use LaTeX when orgmode is insufficient. And I can use LaTeX from within orgmode too. Utility is Contextual. “When you are hungry, eat; when you are thirsty, drink; when you are tired, sleep.” - Wise UNIX Master Foo ---- http://catb.org/esr/writings/unix-koans/shell-tools.html Master Foo and the Shell Tools A Unix novice came to Master Foo and said: “I am confused. Is it not the Unix way that every program s…

Okay. You didn't seem to understand that that was a rhetorical question, because you didn't seem to take the next step of reflection. So, what does your comment to me say if used in response to your own org mode vs markdown comment you made in the post I responded to? You said org mode's capabilities are the reason why you don't want markdown. You keep making this argument that org mode is just better, but you can im…

Org mode's capabilities are the reason why I don't want markdown for me.

Markdown's popularity is the reason why I switch to it for other people (team / colleagues).

LaTeX is too much for day to day use. Its purpose is precision typesetting. That is a lot of work with LaTeX. I don't need to do precision typesetting on a day-to-day basis. But I've used it to format documents for people when they ask me to. Then it's worth the pain. Besides, LaTeX has none of the organisational capabilities enabled by orgmode, for my daily-drive uses.

There is a reason a Physicist---who daily-drives LaTeX, for their publishing work---went through all the trouble to build a note taking system from scratch.

So, once again, utility is contextual, and I refer back to Master Foo's lesson every time I have a problem.

(edits: improve the tone / content)

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

#220

Post by erichocean »

emil-lp wrote: post #212
erichocean wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Repo is nice, thanks. Small nit: it would be nice to have included the final PDF output of your tool on `test.md` in the repo.

That's not a "nit", that's a request, and for someone with the same process, it would be really annoying. There's a reason you don't want generated data under version control.

Is a link in the README to an example PDF really too much to ask?

I don't think so, but again, it's a nit.

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