Re: Thoughts on the standardization of Org

[David Rogers]

Ken Mankoff <mankoff@gmail.com> writes:

> On 2020-11-03 at 00:24 -08, David Rogers 
> <davidandrewrogers@gmail.com> wrote...
> > I disagree (in principle, not just because it would be 
> > difficult) with
> > the idea of “expanding beyond Emacs”. Org-mode benefits greatly 
> > from
> > current and future Emacs development, and asking to standardize 
> > “just
> > the parts that are not Emacs” would cause Org-mode to lose that 
> > huge
> > advantage. Org-mode relies heavily on the editor it’s built on, 
> > and if
> > it ceased to rely on Emacs, it would be forced to rely on 
> > “nothing at
> > all” instead. Not only that, but for Org-mode users being able 
> > to
> > count on all of Emacs is a big part of why it works. This means
> > separating Org-mode from Emacs is a “lose-lose” idea.
>
> It seems like you have never used Orgzly or read on Org file on 
> GitHub. Those are not ideas, but are actual current real-world 
> win-win implementations of parts of Org outside of Emacs.
>
> More of these would be better.
>
> Everyone on this thread who says you can't separate Org from 
> Emacs is correct that it is unreasonable to expect a 100 % 
> bit-compatible and keystroke-compatible experience outside of 
> Emacs. I don't think that level of re-implementation was what 
> the OP was suggesting.
>
> Again: GitHub. Orgzly. The conversation should move from "it 
> can't be done" or "it isn't helpful" (why so much negativity on 
> this thread?) to
>
> + What parts can be standardized and re-implemented outside of 
> Emacs.
> + How do we define graceful failure for the other parts.
> + How do we support 3rd-party implementation in a way that 
> benefits all of us.

I have used most of what you’re describing. None of what you’re 
describing does what the OP was discussing, namely to create a 
clean separation between Emacs and Org-mode in the interest of 
enabling what might be termed “the full complete official 
Org-mode” on non-Emacs editors. Orgzly is a very nice 
implementation of a partial viewer and partial editor for a 
certain subset of .org files, but it doesn’t aim to be an Emacs 
replacement or an authoritative standard. More and better partial 
viewers/partial editors, knowing that “the Org-mode standard” 
equals “precisely how Emacs Org-mode works at the time the 
question is asked”, is a great idea IMO.

Cleaning up a separation between Org-mode and Emacs would 
necessarily mean Org-mode would lose the ability to take advantage 
of future Emacs development - a de facto permanent feature-freeze. 
One of the main advantages of Org-mode is its extensibility, and 
leaving that extensibility behind would suddenly remove one of the 
major actual reasons that it’s attractive (i.e. “Org-mode can’t do 
that yet? Give me half an hour and maybe it will”). Enabling “the 
full complete official Org-mode” to run anywhere, would have the 
eventual effect of it running nowhere, because no one actually 
needs or wants the “It’s Just Markdown On Steroids” list of how to 
properly arrange asterisks and pound-signs that would be the 
result. 

As far as I’m aware, people are currently free to develop 
applications that use their personal interpretation of the .org 
format, and they should do so. The only thing standardization 
would accomplish would be to halt development of the real thing, 
or at least impede it.

(That’s unless the standardization includes so much detail, and 
the bar is set so high, that the standard becomes impractical to 
try to meet anyway.)

--
David Rogers