Alan Mackenzie writes: > Hello, Tim. > > On Mon, Jun 06, 2022 at 10:19:38 +1000, Tim Cross wrote: > >> Michael Albinus writes: > > >> > I have no problem if there are structured README.org or README.md >> > files in parallel. But a README file should be plain text. > > I agree with this. > >> I've seen this mentioned multiple times in this thread and it doesn't >> make sense to me. > >> Org files *are* plain text. This is one of (perhaps the biggest) selling >> points for org mode. They don't use any form of 'binary' data and can be >> read just fine in any text editor or just using cat/less/more whatever. > > We're reduced to arguing about the meaning of "plain text". The way I > see it, plain text means to be read as is by the user. In that sense, > the formats you mention below, xml, html, etc. are _not_ plain text - > they're designed for machine processing. A typical spam email in HTML > has the human readable pieces swamped by the machine readable pieces. I > think you're arguing that this isn't the case with org mode files, though > Philip Kaludercic pointed out an org file where this wasn't the case. > >> They may look a little *ugly*, especially with respect to URLs, but are >> still quite readable - a lot more readable than other plain text formats >> such as xml or html or json etc. > > And their performance in standard programs like grep, wc, etc. is that > much worse than plain text. > >> I also find arguments based around org being complex and difficult to >> learn to be somewhat overstated. > > There are 784 key bindings in org mode. How can you say that this isn't > complex and difficult to learn? > >> Org is powerful and very configurable, .... > > That contradicts your previous statement to some extent. Any program > which is very configurable _needs_ to be configured. > >> .... which means there can be a lot to learn if you want to leverage >> off all it has to offer. > > I don't want to do this. I want to avoid org mode being loaded into my > Emacs; it fouls up my key bindings to a significant extent. Particularly > if I just want to read a 50 line README. > >> However, like emacs, the basics are very simple and easy to learn. > > I don't agree that the basics of Emacs are simple and easy to learn at > all. That's a strong reason why other editors have become popular. Why > should I have to spend time learning a super-complicated mode just to > read a 50 line README? > >> While I'm not arguing that org should be forced upon everyone .... > > If a README file is README.org, then org mode is forced upon anybody > wishing to read it in Emacs. This is why README files should be plain > text. > >> .... and I would agree we need to keep potential load time issues in >> mind, there seems to be lots in this thread over stating the issues and >> jumping to extremes. > > I think org mode is an extreme, with its 784 key bindings which seem to > violate written and unwritten conventions. > >> All that seems to really be under consideration is to enable rendering >> of *org files in help buffers using org font locking and perhaps >> enabling folding, which could be very beneficial for large readme files >> and would not matter for small ones. I also suspect this is something >> which could be disabled with a simple variable setting for those who >> really don't like it. > > "It" could best be avoided by having plain text README files. > > -- > Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany). > Just to add, many of those 784 keybindings of Org are DWIM or context-dependent, which makes it even harder to learn. -- Akib Azmain Turja This message is signed by me with my GnuPG key. It's fingerprint is: 7001 8CE5 819F 17A3 BBA6 66AF E74F 0EFA 922A E7F5