Re: Comment conventions, adding an explicit Header.

[phillip.lord@newcastle.ac.uk (Phillip Lord)]

"Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@xemacs.org> writes:

> Phillip Lord writes:
>
>  > Well, I agree, it's not a particular disaster, and it is certainly one
>  > option that I considered. However, the problem remains that org-mode
>  > uses the lines before the first header to specify a set of variables,
>  > which is something that I cannot do if the first line is a header.
>
> That's a design bug in org-mode, then.  The obvious place to put those
> variables is in a variables block in the *last* page, as Emacs has
> been doing since before card-punched programs disappeared.

Well, variables and other directives (in many cases, they do work just
by setting file locals). It makes sense for org-mode however; for
instance, the title of a document is set in this way, and that should,
for obvious reasons come at the top.

The deep problem is that org mode sections have an explicit start and an
implicit end. So "end of the file" is inside a section if there are any
sections at all.


>  > > Ugh.
>  > 
>  > It's less ugly in the org-mode view of a file, where it just looks like
>  > a normal org-mode header.
>
> I guess I'm just spoiled by ReST, where in many use cases viewing the
> file as plain text is close to optimal (the main thing I'd change is
> that I'd use // to delimit italics and ** for bold).


I'm trying to think about interacting with the text rather than just
viewing it. When writing comments, I want all the features that I expect
from emacs for writing documents. The only solution (in emacs and more
widely) to this is some sort of multiple/poly mode system.

Anyway, I shall stop, as I have strayed far from the original point. Not
the first person to do that on this mailing list, I realise.

Phil