Hi,
On 17/1/19 13:13, Edward K. Ream wrote:
> There are two main reasons to use Leo:
>
> 1. Programmers use Leo's API to write powerful scripts.
>
> 2. Non programmers use clones to organize data.
>
> So if you /aren't/ a programmer, and you /don't/ use clones, then why,
> exactly, are you using Leo? You would be much better off with TheBrain
> <https://www.thebrain.com/support/tutorials>. Really.
>
> Edward
>
> P.S. Imo, all programmers should use clones, but that's a matter of
> the next posting.
>
In my case my path was something like TheBrain -> Leo -> Grafoscopio,
and from idea/PIM to documentation to coding. So I think that maybe this
is an interesting path in the context of this thread. Some details below.
* TheBrain was the first software I ever bought (several years, maybe
decades ago). I have this idea of computers as cognitive devices to
help you in organizing thinking. But the more I used Linux, the less
I used TheBrain. I thought the version was not well supported on
Linux or maybe it was something related with files support.
* I was interested in Python and in some forum I found about Leo as a
prime example of a Python app (instead of Zope, that was the
"premier" Python app at that moment). The concept of clones
immediately resonated with me and the possibilities of "literate
programming" that for me, at that moment meant being able to import
and export files from Leo. I was missing some of the more visual
experience of TheBrain, but the possibility or organize almost
everything in my Linux day to day experience from a single outline
that talked with the files in my Linux machine was unique. Leo was
between the first programs I stalled on any Linux machine. I
traverse my documentation trees and started to recreate the state of
the machine I wanted from single outlines.
The more I worked with text, the more I was interested in
programming and changing Leo and for that @script and @buttons where
a great introduction (as Vilie's video tutorials and Leo docs). I
even made a small script to export certain parts of a Leo document
to an external Markdown document. It felt pretty empowering.
I was also interested in interactive programming and I even tried to
create a merge between Jupyter and Leo, but there was a lot of
incidental complexity, as reported in [1]
http://mutabit.com/offray/static/blog/output/posts/grafoscopio-idea-and-initial-progress.html
* I started to implement some of those ideas focusing on the
experience (interactive outliners with support for live coding)
instead of the technologies (Leo, Jupyter) and using Pharo ecosystem
instead. Several of the ideas that I struggled with for years, where
prototyped in months, even as a coder newbie. The moldability of the
Pharo environment and the way it helps to keep your code
understandable and small and the real time feedback you get while
coding is something I have not seen in any computing environment or
programming language before.
These days I not use TheBrain at all since several years and instead use
Free Plane when I want to do visual mind mapping. My use of Leo is
mostly for quick outlines, but I still have pretty much of my old
outlines in backups and Pharo + Grafoscopio is the tool where I build
most of my prototypes and do coding. There is still a long path to
traverse improving Grafoscopio and making it as ergonomic as Leo. They
don't overlap because Leo is not directed towards live coding and there
are several places where Leo is superb like import/export of external
files to deconstruct and reconstruct them, where Grafoscopio is not
pointing (I would rather use Leo for that).
But Leo legacy goes beyond code and this community makes a living part
of it.
Cheers,
Offray
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