On Sun, Jun 19, 2022 at 03:36:43PM +1000, Tim Cross wrote:

[...]

> I think you missed my point. For the record, I was not implying "Just
> use org".

I didn't intend to convey that. I was just inviting to squint a bit
and to realise that the org side arguments are as valid as those for
any other markup.

I think we are touching a fundamental problem: either you have a
sufficiently unequivocal markup as to be machine readable, then
it automatically becomes somewhat heavy-handed, or you accept that
the machine has to apply some sort of mushy heuristics to try to
extract part of the markup.

And don't get me started on the "semantic" part (watch the Texinfo
branch of this thread :). The one's semantic is the other's syntax.
Semantics is like an onion: once you peel off all layers, you are
left with... nothing.

My point is rater that we'll possibly have to accept that to some,
even seasoned Emacs users, Org might be too heavy handed, and the
mitigations you propose might be of no help.

This shouldn't preclude us of exploring what is in-between. But
we need a very open mind, and if Po Lu, Alan, Drew et al say
"it feels jarring" we better take it seriously instead of saying
"nah, you'll get used to it" (I'm exaggerating a bit, I know).

Would I like a unified markup to have for Texinfo, docstrings,
quick notes, comments? Sure. Would I like for it to be machine
readable? You bet. Would I like for it to be easy on the eyes, even
as raw text? No less. Would I like for it to have links my Emacs
can automatically follow? Yes, please. Would I like for it to be
extensible, so I can come up with an "this is a FOO span"? Exactly.

But with that wishlist, it could well be ony Alan Perlis's
lollipop will do.

Still worth a try :-)

Cheers
-- 
t