Re: Differences between Org-Mode and Hyperbole

[Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net>]

Robert Weiner <rsw@gnu.org> writes:

> On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 7:51 PM, John Wiegley <jwiegley@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>     Even Carsten will admit
>     he's not a software architect by trade; he did what he did based
>     on what he
>     wanted to achieve with Org-mode, and not based on engineering
>     decisions.
>
> Well that explains a lot to those of us unfamiliar with the history. 
> Maybe the
> popularity is based on two things: 1. they provided a welcoming
> community
> that allowed for many people to contribute; 2. they provided the only
> significant
> solution in these areas to people who wanted to do them within Emacs.

Another important reason is that Org is kind of "the Emacs of Emacs".
Meaning a big homogenized, generalized environment, where you can put
"all your stuff", and it all operates according to the same basic set of
rules. Once you've grasped those rules, you feel as if you're truly in
control of your environment.

In this sense, Org is essentially a simplified version of Emacs: meaning
that a greater number of people with a lower programming skill level can
reach that same feeling of flexibility, control, and freedom. That's
what drew me into it, at any rate.

No one has yet tried to make an email client based on Org, thank god,
but it looms on the horizon as a terrible possibility.

>     Now that all the useful work has been done, and experiences
>     gained, it could
>     be a good time to sift out some of the best of its functionality
>     into separate
>     modules.
>
> Or produce a coherent set of requirements and have an Emacs-familiar
> architect
> and programmer (or team) work to produce new implementations with
> clean
> data abstractions, improved visual formats and even higher usability. 
> Task
> tracking, agendas, outlining and literate programming are important
> daily work
> areas for  many technical people, so Emacs should have excellent tools
> in these
> areas.  Has anyone examined the org-mode code to see whether it is
> well
> written or not?

Nicolas Goaziou did heroic work cleaning up and rationalizing the Org
document structure, and its export framework. To me, this one of Org's
"base units".

Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but the Agenda/TODO system
(another of Org's "base units") hasn't undergone the same cleanup, so
far as I'm aware. This is a potential area for refactoring and
separation from the Org codebase, since theoretically there's no reason
why the Agenda should be limited to Org.

The amount of work that would entail is staggering.

E