Asa Zeren <asaize...@gmail.com> writes:
Hi,
Even though I am new to the org-mode community, I would like to
share
some thoughts on the specification of org-mode, especially since
I
have seen some recent discussion of it in relation to
registering org
as a MIME type.
First, I would like to repeat the importance of developing
standards
for org-mode. If we want to expand the influence of org, tooling
must
expand beyond Emacs. While Emacs is an amazing tool, ...
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.
As far as the level of difficulty, any developer thinking “I want
my application to be able to run Org-mode” really just has one
item on their to-do list: Duplicate every detail of Emacs,
including all the obscure capabilities and all the quirks,
especially that everything user-modifiable is in Emacs Lisp, and
maintain all future updates in lockstep with whatever the future
Emacs developers decide. Sounds like fun. :)
If you admire a certain car maker’s engines, you can probably get
one somehow to install in a unique car you’re building. But this
situation isn’t really like that. This idea is more like wanting
to buy just the speed indicator from a fast car and install that,
expecting it to improve your car’s acceleration.
--
David Rogers