Re: Convert README.org to plain text README while installing package

[Tim Cross]

Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@gmail.com> writes:

> Tim Cross <theophilusx@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support> writes:
>>
>>> * Tim Cross <theophilusx@gmail.com> [2022-06-06 15:57]:
>>>> Org files *are* plain text. This is one of (perhaps the biggest) selling
>>>> points for org mode.
>>>
>>> We may call it "plain text" and problem is not that we can open Org
>>> files with any editor as plain text, but in formatting. People format
>>> Org files in such ways that they are not readable, they may not make
>>> spacing where it would be otherwise required, in other words, plain
>>> text files do not look nearly as readable as for example RFC text,
>>> like this one: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1.txt
>>
>> Please give me an example of org mode 'not make space where it would be
>> otherwise required'. Can you provide a single example of org mode
>> syntax which is not readable in any text editor. There are quite a few
>> projects on Github/Gitlab which have readme.org files - can you point to
>> one which cannot be read with a plain text editor? 
>
> I'd say that Jean made a fair point.
> In Org, authors may not care as much about, for example, indentation.
> Especially when the org files are written with org-indent-mode turned
> on.
>
> If you look at https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1.txt, the paragraphs a
> nicely indented and can be distinguished from the headers. The top-level
> headers are numbered and can be easily distinguished from the
> lower-level headers. The paragraph text is also filled appropriately,
> unlike some Org documents written with truncate-lines set to nil.
>
> So, without Emacs, Org files (some of them!) may be harder to read
> compared to properly formatted ASCII.
>
> I am not 100% sure if we need to do anything about this observation.
> One practical conclusion that can be made is that we might incorporate
> filling, numbering, and indentation into ox-org.el.
>

On one level, fair enough. However, this has nothing to do with org mode
in the sense it is not enforced or caused by org mode. My point is that
there is nothing in the org mode syntax which makes it impossible to
read the contents with any plain text editor. You can also write a
poorly formatted ascii file which lacks indentation, spaces etc in any editor. 

There is nothing in org syntax which forces people to set truncate lines
to nil or prevents them from indenting or wrapping or adding underlines
or extra spaces around headings or .... If you want to write rfc
compliant files with org mode, you can. It isn't the org mode syntax
which is the issue. Besides, just because a plain text file doesn't look
as nice or isn't a subjectively readable doesn't mean it isn't a plain
text file anymore.