Exporting ODT to Org [was Re: General advice beyond Org]

Exporting ODT to Org [was Re: General advice beyond Org]

[edgar]

On 2018-05-20 01:24, Samuel Wales wrote:
> perhaps we can start thinking about improving registration between 
> formats?

I don't really know what this means.

> if you export org [you posted to org mailng list] to a foreign format,
> you want your collaborator to be able to edit, save, send back without
> raising a sweat.

Not really, although it would be nice--and possibly titanic to do.

> now you have to integrate the changes.  you want to do this without 
> annoyance.
> 
> suppose you export comments in the foreign format that contain the
> equivalent of persistent markers.  you might or might not be willing
> to put org id or custom id on every heading, but there might be
> workarounds that are not so intrusive.  maybe your source can contain
> comments with markers.  dunno.

Every great project had to start somewhere (this sounds like that). 
However, if I am going to devote time to such a gigantic task, I would 
rather spend it trying to convert others to free software rather than 
doing favours to a closed format. I am not saying that it wouldn't be 
nice to have it.

> if your exported document is a subtree within a huge org file that you
> edit all the time, registration allows your software to identify that
> subtree, so you're not trying to change anything outside that subtree.
> that alone is a win.

This sounds like a project for people in LibreOffice or Pandoc. I think 
I will contact them to see if they are interested.

> 
> but maybe we can do more.  the markers can register sections or even
> paragraphs if you're doing intensive collaboration.  the tricky part
> might be getting standard tools to understand that the mapping of
> markers takes precedence over everything else.

Yes, big project.

> 
> details of this handwavey and possibly impossible brainstorm are left
> as an exercise for the reader.

LooooL! you remind me of books with notes such as "after deriving the 
equation one arrives to the following expression" :P !

Thank you.

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Re: General advice beyond Org

[edgar]

> Message: 2
> Date: Sat, 19 May 2018 18:31:55 -0400
> From: "James K. Lowden" <jklowden@speakeasy.net>
> To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
> Subject: Re: General advice beyond Org
> Message-ID: <20180519183155.caea7e3c88b046e85a82e888@speakeasy.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
> 
> On Fri, 18 May 2018 00:28:22 +0000
> edgar@openmail.cc wrote:
> 
>> _I_ need help. I am in graduate school, and I keep having issues with
>> my advisor for my strong inclination to use free software. I am
>> obviously not in position to refuse, but she dislikes to have
>> discussions about it. She pays a stipend to me every month, and my
>> tuition is waved.
> 
> Question #1: How important is your strong inclination, measured in
> dollars?  Because we all have to go along to get along, to some extent.

American, Canadian, Australian... dollars? :D . I don't like to measure 
myself in currency. It is as if turning into a product. I guess that you 
mean how much I am willing to give up for my inclination, which is a 
good question.

> Every place I've ever worked used at least some proprietary software.
> Every place had the need to exchange modifiable files.  The desire to
> move from Windows to, say, Qt was nil.

This reminds me of the comment from Gene:

> Date: Fri, 18 May 2018 16:27:12 -0700 (PDT)
>> Do you have any idea how many in positions of authority to constrain
>> your freedom of choise OWN Monopoly$oft stock and have no qualms about
>> misusing their positions of authority to specify proprietary products
>> which benifit them as stock holders?!
>> 
>> Don't EVEN go there!

But it is good to know that I will face this.

> The need to share information trumps concerns about software licensing
> every time.  The need to keep using what you know trumps touted
> features of what you'd have to learn.  If you don't believe me, ask
> someone whose department switched to Git from Subversion.

Golly! I still remember all the time that I had to devote to partially 
use Emacs correctly, having used many others in the past! I would not go 
back!

> Your advisor is only the tip of the iceberg.  Really, she's a messenger
> from the real world, a place where you'll have to learn to use software
> you don't like, and deal with many other contraints and impositions on
> your freedom to get the job done.  All organizations have rules, after
> all, by definition.

> If you're trying to defend your ideals, it might help to remember you
> can't, because everything is connected to everything else.

The first part of this statement is very daunting, depressing and grim.

> During the Vietnam war, it wasn't uncommon for someone to declare their
> opposition to the war meant they refused to work for a defense
> contractor.  OK.  Banking, then?  But banks finance defense
> contractors.  McDonalds?  They feed defense contractor employees.
> Academia?  You're training new defense contractors.  No matter how you
> earn your bread, your employer and your earnings eventually feed the
> same maw.

Oh! war! thou creator of all!

> If you're just trying to pamper your fingers, it might help to remember
> you can.  To the extent others are unaffected, you'll usually be free
> to choose what software to use.  That will be more true in technical
> and scientific areas, and less true in business and administrative
> ones.

I don't know what "pamper your fingers" mean, but I think that the 
message is the comparison between technical and scientific v.s. business 
and administrative.

> How much independence you have depends on how expert you are.  If you
> need guidance in how to accomplish a task, any task, you can't expect
> the person helping you to *also* learn your software.  Usually help
> comes in the form of "using X do Y", and if you don't have X, you have
> to figure out what X(Y) is.  If you know the problem domain and your
> software very well, the route to X(Y) is shorter than if you don't.

May be that is why it is easier in academia? where answers are not 
completely clear?

> One last point that's often underappreciated: if you use whatever
> software you're asked/expected to use, then if you have problems or
> delays -- as you certainly will -- you'll have a sympathetic ear.  If
> you insist on doing it your own way, others will blame every problem or
> delay, fairly or not, on your choice of software.  Before you buck the
> system, it pays to get buy-in or to be very, very sure you'll come out
> ahead.
> 

Thanks for the heads up!

> --jkl

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Exporting ODT to Org [was Re: General advice beyond Org]

[edgar]

> Message: 4
> Date: Sun, 20 May 2018 10:08:46 +0200
> From: <tomas@tuxteam.de>
> To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
> Subject: Re: General advice beyond Org
> Message-ID: <20180520080846.GA15239@tuxteam.de>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; x-action=pgp-signed
> 
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> On Sat, May 19, 2018 at 06:24:49PM -0700, Samuel Wales wrote:
>> perhaps we can start thinking about improving registration between 
>> formats?
> 
> This resonates with some vague ideas that keep haunting some
> dark corners of my mind:
> 
> it isn't generally possible to convert "Word" [1] into Org. But what
> if that "Word" is just a slight modification of something which has
> been transformed from an Org document we know?
> 
> Of course, augmenting that with "pockets" where to stash 
> meta-information
> which might get lost on round-trip would be even more interesting. 
> Perhaps
> those pockets are external, tied to some (possibly change-resistant) 
> hash
> made of enough context.
> 
> Did I say dark corners?
> 
> Cheers

Makes me feel lucky of being able to tie my laces! :D .

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Re: General advice beyond Org

[Marcin Borkowski]

On 2018-05-20, at 21:29, edgar@openmail.cc wrote:

>> Question #1: How important is your strong inclination, measured in
>> dollars?  Because we all have to go along to get along, to some extent.
>
> American, Canadian, Australian... dollars? :D . I don't like to
> measure myself in currency. It is as if turning into
> a product. I guess that you mean how much I am willing to give up for
> my inclination, which is a good question.

Good point about not measuring everything in money.

>> If you're trying to defend your ideals, it might help to remember you
>> can't, because everything is connected to everything else.
>
> The first part of this statement is very daunting, depressing and grim.

And very untrue.

It helps to develop a rational attitude to morality: you do not have
influence on everything, not even all the results of your actions, and
hence you do not bear responsibility for what you don't influence.  (Of
course, that doesn't mean you don't bear any responsibility for what you
_do_ influence.)

For instance, you go to the bakery, buy the bread and pay the baker the
money.  He then takes the money and goes to buy a gun to kill his wife.
Are you responsible?  I don't think so (at least under normal
circumstances).

(BTW, by "rational attitude to morality" I mean "attitude to morality
which takes morality seriously, and at the same time takes seriously the
_reality_, i.e., not some nice-looking theory which does not work in
practice, nor any way to just say that morality doesn't matter.  IOW,
"rational attitude to morality" is just "the Catholic attitude to
morality".)

>> During the Vietnam war, it wasn't uncommon for someone to declare their
>> opposition to the war meant they refused to work for a defense
>> contractor.  OK.  Banking, then?  But banks finance defense
>> contractors.  McDonalds?  They feed defense contractor employees.
>> Academia?  You're training new defense contractors.  No matter how you
>> earn your bread, your employer and your earnings eventually feed the
>> same maw.
>
> Oh! war! thou creator of all!

Again, too simplistic and not true.

>> If you're just trying to pamper your fingers, it might help to remember
>> you can.  To the extent others are unaffected, you'll usually be free
>> to choose what software to use.  That will be more true in technical
>> and scientific areas, and less true in business and administrative
>> ones.
>
> I don't know what "pamper your fingers" mean, but I think that the
> message is the comparison between technical and scientific
> v.s. business and administrative.

FWIW, I work in a small software house which mostly uses open-source
software (which is not the same as free software, but has a big
intersection with it).  We use Node.js, Vagrant, Ansible, PostgreSQL...
And our boss encourages us to "give back" to the larger community by bug
reports, pull requests and open-sourcing small utilities we write.

>> One last point that's often underappreciated: if you use whatever
>> software you're asked/expected to use, then if you have problems or
>> delays -- as you certainly will -- you'll have a sympathetic ear.  If
>> you insist on doing it your own way, others will blame every problem or
>> delay, fairly or not, on your choice of software. [...]

*Very true*.  We have one person using MacOS.  Every time there's some
problem, someone says "It's because it's Apple."  Yes, it's a joke, but
it's symptomatic.  We also run a small, jocular version of "editor war"
between Emacs (me) and Sublime Text (most of the other developers).

Just my 2 cents.

--
Marcin Borkowski
http://mbork.pl

Re: Exporting ODT to Org [was Re: General advice beyond Org]

[tomas]

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On Sun, May 20, 2018 at 07:34:23PM +0000, edgar@openmail.cc wrote:

[...]

> Makes me feel lucky of being able to tie my laces! :D .

:-D

Don't worry. Great humans are, from time to time reported to have
a hard time with that:

  "Though kind hearted, warm, and likeable Erdos was known for his
  lack of social graces [...] It is said Erdos had never tied his
  own shoelaces until age 14 nor buttered his own bread until he
  was 21 years old [...]"
  <https://www.geni.com/people/Paul-Erd%C5%91s/6000000000420793692>

Cheers
- -- t
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Re: General advice beyond Org

[James K. Lowden]

On Mon, 21 May 2018 05:39:07 +0200
Marcin Borkowski <mbork@mbork.pl> wrote:

> For instance, you go to the bakery, buy the bread and pay the baker
> the money.  He then takes the money and goes to buy a gun to kill his
> wife. Are you responsible?  I don't think so (at least under normal
> circumstances).

I'd like to respond, even though we're wandering off topic from
the OP's OT message.  

No, you're not responsible.  Neither could you have prevented the
murder by not patronizing the baker.  

As I see it, we can individually do very little virtuous in the
marketplace. You can recycle, buy organic, drive a hybrid, whatever.
Your effect, positive or negative, is miniscule, taken alone. Likewise
deciding not to work in a Windows shop on principle.  

Maximizing your knowledge and capacity is much more rewarding and, I'd
argue, socially important.  

Your job is rewarding to the extent it requires you to work at the edge
of your capacity, to learn and innovate.  Human beings love to do what
they're good at, whether it's pitching a baseball or devising a data
structure.  As someone not frustrated/stunted by the job, you have
more energy and confidence to pay attention to nonwork, and to apply
what you learn at work to the larger society.  

If your goal is to widen the aegis of free software, you can to more to
further it by maximizing your capacity than by boycotting employers.
Then, one day -- when you're in charge of a lab, say, or investing a
small fortune -- you can make some actual difference.  If that
opportunity never comes to pass, at least you've pursued interesting
work, and enriched your life and others' around you in the process.  

--jkl

Re: General advice beyond Org

[Bob Newell]

It's tempting to fall back on the clichéed idea that one goes from
idealism to cynicism as one ages. But one does acquire some practical
knowledge, and learning when to compromise and when not to compromise
is one example.

As I said far above in this thread and a few others have echoed, we
need to pick our battles. Some battles aren't worth it, while others
are mandatory. And that line varies as much by individual as it does
by battle domain.

I mentioned that I worked in one environment that was completely
locked down with absolutely zero deviation permitted. That made work
very much more difficult, especially as it was just about pure
Microsoft. But the job was good; it was worth doing, it paid well
enough, it was challenging, and it wasn't something I would quit just
so I could go somewhere else that embraced FOSS. That was more of a
business decision than a moral one; I'm not RMS and while FOSS is
important to me, it's not a hill to die on. Your own mileage may vary,
and that's fine.

If, on the other hand, the job required me to go out and kill all
people of a certain race or religion, it would be an entirely
different matter and no amount of pay or benefits would get me to do
that. It's a deliberately ridiculous example made to illustrate the
point that the "line" lies somewhere in-between. For most people it
will be somewhere above pure idealism and somewhere below stark
cynicism.

Real life is filled with compromises; indeed, society wouldn't get on
without some of them. So we have to make choices, and we need to make
them with our eyes open.

Wow, we are SO off topic!

Re: General advice beyond Org

[Marcin Borkowski]

On 2018-05-21, at 20:07, Bob Newell <bobnewell@bobnewell.net> wrote:

> It's tempting to fall back on the clichéed idea that one goes from
> idealism to cynicism as one ages. But one does acquire some practical

No, one goes (or should go at least) from the naive idealism to the
reasonable idealism.

Also, maybe (just maybe) one goes from thinking about one's ideals in
the abstract way to gradually understanding that a lot of ideals are
about other people.

> knowledge, and learning when to compromise and when not to compromise
> is one example.

Yes.

> As I said far above in this thread and a few others have echoed, we
> need to pick our battles. Some battles aren't worth it, while others
> are mandatory. And that line varies as much by individual as it does
> by battle domain.

OTOH, there are also battles that are not "worth it" in purely pragmatic
sense, and they are indeed worth fighting in moral sense.  "There are
some things that it is better to begin than to refuse, even though the
end may be dark", as Aragorn once put it.

> I mentioned that I worked in one environment that was completely
> locked down with absolutely zero deviation permitted. That made work
> very much more difficult, especially as it was just about pure
> Microsoft. But the job was good; it was worth doing, it paid well
> enough, it was challenging, and it wasn't something I would quit just
> so I could go somewhere else that embraced FOSS. That was more of a
> business decision than a moral one; I'm not RMS and while FOSS is
> important to me, it's not a hill to die on. Your own mileage may vary,
> and that's fine.
>
> If, on the other hand, the job required me to go out and kill all
> people of a certain race or religion, it would be an entirely
> different matter and no amount of pay or benefits would get me to do
> that. It's a deliberately ridiculous example made to illustrate the
> point that the "line" lies somewhere in-between. For most people it
> will be somewhere above pure idealism and somewhere below stark
> cynicism.

Ah, the joys of Darboux-style arguments! ;-)

But you're right.  Of course, in the usual case we are somewhere
in-between, and sometimes it is quite hard to decide what one should
do.

> Wow, we are SO off topic!

Are we?  I don't think so.

Best,

--
Marcin Borkowski
http://mbork.pl

Re: Exporting ODT to Org [was Re: General advice beyond Org]

[edgar]

> Message: 7
> Date: Mon, 21 May 2018 10:07:23 +0200
> From: <tomas@tuxteam.de>
> To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
> Subject: Re: Exporting ODT to Org [was Re: General advice beyond Org]
> Message-ID: <20180521080723.GA24055@tuxteam.de>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; x-action=pgp-signed
> 
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> On Sun, May 20, 2018 at 07:34:23PM +0000, edgar@openmail.cc wrote:
> 
> [...]
> 
>> Makes me feel lucky of being able to tie my laces! :D .
> 
> :-D

:P

> 
> Don't worry. Great humans are, from time to time reported to have
> a hard time with that:
> 
>   "Though kind hearted, warm, and likeable Erdos was known for his
>   lack of social graces [...] It is said Erdos had never tied his
>   own shoelaces until age 14 nor buttered his own bread until he
>   was 21 years old [...]"
>   <https://www.geni.com/people/Paul-Erd%C5%91s/6000000000420793692>
> 

With all due respect to Mr. Paul Erdős, sorry for my ignorance. I did 
not know that this existed. I appreciate the comment, tom.

> Cheers
> - -- t

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