I also struggled a bit to write a concise and short explanation of what Leo is/does in the text introductions I wrote for LeoInteg and LeoJS...
I enjoyed reading both of your posts! :) If it can bring you some inspiration, the way I resume Leo as briefly as I can at the top of the readme for those projects is : *Literate Programming with Directed Acyclic Graphs (dag)Break your code down into sections structured as an outline, to derive or parse back your filesLeo is a fundamentally different way of using and organizing data, programs and scripts.* ... and in the 'welcome screen' of LeoInteg I wrote: *Use Leo, the Literate Editor with Outlines, to program with directed acyclic graphs, along with section-references, @others, and clones.* Félix On Saturday, February 25, 2023 at 3:06:50 PM UTC-5 Geoff Evans wrote: > This reminds me of something I posted in 2012 (!) It takes its starting > point not from what Leo is, but from the sorts of things people might want > to use and program a computer for in the first place which, for many of us, > have very little to do with editing. Here is is again: > > -------------------------------- > > I should start by saying that I use Leo daily and wouldn't now consider > starting any project lasting more than a week without it. I'm immensely > grateful to Edward and the community of collaborators for creating and > polishing it. Two things prompt me nevertheless to write. First, I have > a strong feeling that there are ways I could be using it better, to make > my life even easier, if only I could manage to break into them; secondly, > Edward asks from time to time something like "Why isn't everybody using > Leo and what would it take to convert more people?" Maybe the following > will be a contribution. > > When I started programming in Python a couple of years ago, and started > learning about object-oriented principles, one that struck me especially > was "Program to the interface, not the implementation." (It often takes > me a while to remember this when I'm working; but it always makes things > better when I do.) My "Aha" moment a couple of months ago came when I > realized that this wasn't true only of programming -- the same principle > applies to writing as well. Papers that jump right in to telling me what > the author did don't work nearly as well as those that start with the > reader and what s/he might care about and how the author proposes to > help with that. > > [Isn't it interesting that the maxim I quoted above disobeys itself, > because > it refers to the implementation in a computer program whereas the > real interface is the general act of communication and the primacy of the > receiver over the transmitter.] > > So I envisage a tutorial starting as follows (sketch only): > > Suppose you have a project that entails using some data, doing some > computations, and writing up the results. If you want to easily: > > -- work on / store / contemplate the project as a unified whole > [Leo manages all relevant files in one outline] > > -- see and work on one small part in its context > [Leo is an outliner] > > -- copy thoughts, results from one context to another > [clones] > > -- switch between interactive and batch processing > [iPython interface] > > -- produce nice printed (literate?) documentation for those who don't > use Leo or don't do all their work glued to a computer screen > [rst3? noweb? Fweb? maybe little sample batch files with all the > required steps?] > > -- ??? > [scripting] > And here I'm stuck: Leo documentation assures me that scripting is an > amazingly powerful answer, but doesn't tell me what questions I might > like to ask, or what needs I might have, that it is an answer to. It > simply tells me what to do if I already know why I want to. > > -- Here is where the community may want to contribute ways Leo has made > their working lives easier and more productive, by meeting existing needs > or wishes that had nothing intrinsically to do with Leo. > > I envisage this as complementing the existing tutorial in leodocs. It > may provide an entrance that a different class of potential user would > find attractive. Or maybe I just need someone to gently point me to > where what I am suggesting already exists ;-) > > Cheers, geoff evans > > ------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Major offshoots in the last decade (e.g.ViewRendered) suggest further > examples of "if you want to easily ..." that people who use and understand > them could provide. > > Confession: Most of what I used to do with Leo I now do with Jupyter > notebooks. This is partly because my collaborators are more likely to know > and use it, > but also possibly because the documentation tends to take it for granted > that a feature is valuable so all that is necessary is to show me how (but > not why) > to use it. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "leo-editor" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/leo-editor/152d1a8c-5a71-42ac-90b5-36331d0d7638n%40googlegroups.com.
