Re: "Why is emacs so square?"

[Joost Kremers <joostkremers@fastmail.fm>]

On Thu, Apr 23 2020, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> Actually, it's crucial to mention that. You might say it's 
>> Org's 
>> raison d'être. It's what makes integrating all of Org's 
>> functions 
>> so tightly possible.
>
> If features are well integrated and work together well, how is 
> it
> important to know that they do it because of a certain way of
> formatting text?

Because the user has to format that text. :-) Sure, there are 
helper functions for a lot of things, but as a user you do need to 
know the Org format.

>> But at the same time it should be made clear from the outset 
>> that 
>> Org's strength lies in its integration. I mean, I could use 
>> Markdown with Pandoc to write my papers, *cough* Google 
>> Calendar 
>> *cough* to keep track of my appointments, Jupyter for keeping 
>> programming notebooks and *cough* Evernote *cough* to keep 
>> notes, 
>> but there would be no way to link all of that. With Org, there 
>> is.
>
> You are actually describe the strength of Emacs as an integrated
> package whose parts work well with one another.  And yet we have
> separate manuals for major parts: Gnus, Org, Eshell, etc. -- 
> just look
> inside doc/misc/.

Yes, but it's a different level of integration. I need a decent 
working knowledge of Elisp to be able to integrate Gnus and 
Eshell. But I only need to know Org syntax in order to integrate 
my TODO list, task management and writing with my calendar. The 
point is, I need to know Org syntax anyway to do each single thing 
separately. Integrating them doesn't require a deeper level of 
knowledge than I already have.

> IOW, I don't see a contradiction here.

I'm not saying there's a contradiction. If that's how I came 
across, then I didn't make my point very well. Like I said, I 
think the Org documentation would benefit greatly if your 
suggestions were implemented. It's just that the fact that Org's 
different parts are tightly integrated should not be tucked away 
in some "Advanced Use" section of the manual.

-- 
Joost Kremers
Life has its moments