Org mode rant

[Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support>]

* Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor <help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org> [2021-05-01 01:11]:
> Jean Louis wrote:
> 
> > Org mode is one of popular modes
> 
> Sure but not everyone likes it.

For notes I have been using database for long time, then in 2016, I
found about Org mode, and it is quite helpful to quickly without
direct LaTeX usage generate good quality PDF files, so I have been
using it for projects mostly. As I deal with hundreds of people, soon
there were too many Org files for each person tasks and
transactions. That becomes mess, as I cannot query through it, text
files are separate from each other. Sending or sharing tasks is pain,
and I had to extend it myself, collaboration is non-existent. Then
before few months I have decided to switch all Org files that have
some tasks, notes, transactions into the database, and I will not go
back. Now if I wish, I can generate and export to Org file, but not
vice versa. This way I am editing things on meta-level. And I do like
that. There are still 2500 Org files on my computer. But I have
figured out how to move it to database.

I like having the opportunity to reference even a single item in a
list, which is not possible with Org. I like to reference any
paragraph I wish or join and order Org chunks in the database as I
wish, including mix Org chunks or database blobs with other types like
images, videos, PDFs, Markdown, etc.

Org is so much better for writing or document preparation than for
management of procrastination, I mean tasks. One nice thing is that
TODO is highlighted, but that is quite easy to achieve in Emacs
anyway.

There is too much hype about it. Blatant and sensational promotion. Oh
my heaven. The hype draws many people to it, and so many get stuck
into bad design. Text is text, but it wants to be structured text, and
it wants to be database, but it cannot. And programmers try their
best, but will never be a database. And because there is no connection
to any kind of a database, it becomes very tiresome to code even
simple things like tagging with some dates and stamps. Database has
that already built-in and to keep trace of date/time stamps becomes
trivial. Properties in Org file are right there in front of the eyes,
confusing everybody who is confronted with it. My properties are in
the database entry, I can see them on a click, but don't need to.

TASKS - they are too often related to people, we have to do something
for others, others have to do something for us, or for others, people
do tasks, tasks are assigned to people, tasks are shared to people and
groups of people. There are no such concepts in Org, it is left to
user to find for himself, and there is no universaly helpful method.

Org is pleasure, it is interesting, it will help those who otherwise
could not help themselves and Org remains to be extremely useful.

For me it is not. I like to create a task, like today, we receive
Western Union in a group, I duplicate old task, change some
information, press a key and task is sent by email to the assigned
person, SMS notification follows up or even a call. While same can be
done in Org file, due to it not really being structured with separate
data from each other, it is much error prone. I found it surprising
that a TASK cannot be default be assigned to a person and that there
is no built-in function to send it by e-mail but I found my way with
Org.

> > it has 52 matches for "(eval " on my computer
> 
> But that's not the reason, is it? :O

Who knows. Org Babel has to evaluate scripts and insert into
buffer. That is some type of evaluation I am doing for WWW
publishing. I could as well evaluate templates with any other language
specified.

⟦ (perl 2+2) ⟧ would work equally well as anything from "(perl" to ")"
could be evaluated by perl, not Emacs Lisp.

So much hype about Org and literate programming that people don't even
find true beauties of programs such as:

Cherrytree - hierarchical note taking application with rich text and syntax highlighting
https://www.giuspen.com/cherrytree/

Leo editor vs Org-mode
https://leoeditor.com/emacs.html

Leo programmable editor
http://leoeditor.com/



-- 
Jean

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