Re: Org mode and Emacs

[Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>]

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  > I understand. However, new features are added to Texinfo for a reason.

That is correct.  We added each of these features to Texinfo because
some GNU manual needed it.  Indeed, the simple way to find out all the
features GNU manuals need is to look at the Texinfo manual and see
what they required us to support.

We're comsidering the idea of making Org format adequate for GNU
mamuals.  Currently it can't express the distinctions that are needed
in order to produce the proper output for each of the output formats.

If we want to achieve that, we come to this question:

* What specific extension syntax would we use for Org equivalents
of the Texinfo constructs that Org currently cannot express>

  > The way I see Org markup extension would make it easy to users add new
  > custom markup, as needed. Then, no frequent changes to the base markup
  > will be necessary to accommodate for less common use cases.

I see a possible ambiguity and point of confusion.  When you say,
"extension", do you mean "a package that gets loaded on top of
ordinary Org mode"?  That's what I thought it meant.

Implementing some of the Texinfo constructs in such a package, perhaps
called org-texinfo, is an implementation detail as far as I'm
concerned.

But now I think maybe you mean something else -- that you propose
to add some sort of limited macro definition facility and have the
missing Texinfo constructs be defined using that.  Is that it?

To be adequate for this job, the macro definition facility needs to be
more powerful than they usually are.  The expansion of one construct
needs to depend on the output format being generated, and sometimes
the expansion of construct A depends on whether it is inside construct
B.

If the facility can do that, I think it will suffice for nearly all of
the missing Texinfo constructs.  If you think of this as a method to
simplify part of the implementation of Texinfo in Org, it may work.

But be prepared for exeptions, constructs that need special handling!
If you think of this as a way to keep Org itself free of Texinfo
impurities, it won't work.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)