org the program vs. org the format

org the program vs. org the format

[Thomas Koch]

Hi,

there's a discussion on emacs-devel[1] about replacing texinfo as the 
documentation format and org is mentioned. RMS correctly mentions that org-
mode is not a format but a program.

This was also my problem when I thought about using org-mode at work in my 
team. Since I'm the only emacs user we decided to use asciidoc which is a 
format that can be edited and processed with different programs.

So org-mode is a bit like PHP which also doesn't (didn't) have a specification 
but the implementation is the specification.

Would it be possible to change the format of org-mode to be a superset of e.g. 
asciidoc or markdown but keep the features?

[1] "On being web-friendly and why info must die"

Regards, Thomas Koch

Re: org the program vs. org the format

[Daniele Pizzolli]

Hello Thomas,

Thomas Koch writes:

> Hi,
>
> there's a discussion on emacs-devel[1] about replacing texinfo as the 
> documentation format and org is mentioned. RMS correctly mentions that org-
> mode is not a format but a program.
>
> This was also my problem when I thought about using org-mode at work in my 
> team. Since I'm the only emacs user we decided to use asciidoc which is a 
> format that can be edited and processed with different programs.
>
> So org-mode is a bit like PHP which also doesn't (didn't) have a specification 
> but the implementation is the specification.
>
> Would it be possible to change the format of org-mode to be a superset of e.g. 
> asciidoc or markdown but keep the features?

Sorry for not answering directly but I am not enough knowledgeable.

I like to point out that there is an ongoing attempt to specify the org
syntax[1], and that there are translators[2] and tools[3] that can work
with org source files.

My personal workaround (but I am not sure it can scale for a community)
is to have emacs and all the org dependencies packaged in a lightweight
virtual machine.  A set of script take care to send the org files to the
vm and retrieve the results.  Unfortunately my approach is quite rough,
and I am not aware of any recent attempt to offer org-mode as a
service[4].  If you have some degree of control of your build/continuous
integration server I guess this is a viable solution.

My use case is to have a clean environment where build a reproducible doc
using babel, IMHO not so farm from using org for creating documentation.

Like you I also have problem in sharing the result and the work, because
of the high step for newcomers that do know little about emacs, command
line and scripting.  I think that we have some good examples for solving
this, see for example the ipython notebook[5] and rmarkdown[6], both
projects month after month gain more and more adoption.  The great power
of org is still winning for me, but I keep an eye on other approaches.

Best,
Daniele

[1] http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-orgmode/2014-09/msg00599.html
[2] http://orgmode.org/worg/org-translators.html
[3] http://orgmode.org/worg/org-tools/index.html
[4] http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-orgmode/2012-03/msg01097.html
[5] http://ipython.org/notebook.html
[6] http://rmarkdown.rstudio.com/

Re: org the program vs. org the format

[Rasmus]

Thomas Koch <thomas@koch.ro> writes:

> there's a discussion on emacs-devel[1] about replacing texinfo as the 
> documentation format and org is mentioned. RMS correctly mentions that org-
> mode is not a format but a program.

With respect to export:
     
     - Org is a syntax.  The reference interpreter is org-element, but
       e.g. org-ruby exists and lazyblorg (or something like that)
       provides a Python interpreter.
     - Org-mode is an "editor" supporting the Org syntax.  It further
       has agenda, todo, etc. support.
     - Ox is a transcoder translating Org syntax to whatever output.

See:
          (info "(org) Org syntax")
and          
          http://orgmode.org/worg/dev/org-syntax.html

Nicolas will probably give a clearer definition.

> This was also my problem when I thought about using org-mode at work in my 
> team. Since I'm the only emacs user we decided to use asciidoc which is a 
> format that can be edited and processed with different programs.

Emacs already runs on all imaginable platforms...  Export with Emacs.
People are free to use Notepad for editing Org.  My coauthor uses
texworks for editing Org.

Perhaps the issue is rather that it should be easy to use ox in batch.
A nice terminal program for exporting documents, shipped with Emacs
(/usr/bin/ox, say) would be cool, to make ox {make batch sh}-friendly.
Orgmk is a program that tries to do this, but it would be cool to have
it with Emacs.  These days Emacs can be a shebang on at least Linux.

> So org-mode is a bit like PHP which also doesn't (didn't) have a specification 
> but the implementation is the specification.

This claim is wrong.

> Would it be possible to change the format of org-mode to be a superset of e.g. 
> asciidoc or markdown but keep the features?

No!  BTW: Org already exports to md.

—Rasmus

-- 
Dung makes an excellent fertilizer