Re: [ELPA] New package: SachaC-news

[Christopher Dimech <dimech@gmx.com>]

> Sent: Monday, January 01, 2024 at 9:36 AM
> From: "Adam Porter" <adam@alphapapa.net>
> To: "Eli Zaretskii" <eliz@gnu.org>
> Cc: rms@gnu.org, cnngimenez@disroot.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Subject: Re: [ELPA] New package: SachaC-news
>
> On 12/31/23 13:32, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> >> Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2023 12:13:24 -0600
> >> Cc: cnngimenez@disroot.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> >> From: Adam Porter <adam@alphapapa.net>
> >>
> >>> Org format is text with its own kind of markup -- it is not plain text.
> >>
> >> Many users would disagree.
> >
> > How can users disagree with something that is a plain fact?
>
> A fact?  Org's own web site, as I said, proclaims, "Your life in plain
> text."  It would seem there is at least room for interpretation.
>
> >> If you look up promotional and educational
> >> content about Org, you'll find that cited as one of its chief benefits:
> >> that it's essentially plain text.
> >
> > "Essentially plain text" means it's not plain text.
>
> What is "plain text"?  Is the following block "plain text"?
>
>    To-do list:
>
>    - Walk dog
>    - Feed cat
>    - Reply to email
>
> I would say so, as I've written many such lists in ".txt" files before I
> discovered Org mode, yet it has Org syntax that would cause it to be
> parsed as a paragraph followed by a bulleted list.  If it is not "plain
> text," then what would make it so?  Shall we remove the hyphens?
>
>    To-do list:
>
>    Walk dog
>    Feed cat
>    Reply to email
>
> Is that now "plain text"?  Does that now qualify it for inclusion in an
> Emacs package since it technically lacks Org syntax?  (Or does it?  Org
> will parse that block as two paragraphs of Org-formatted text.)  Is it
> now easier to read outside of org-mode's font-locking?
>
> > Do you deny that Org files have their own specialized markup?  Because
> > that's all that Richard said above.  If you do agree that Org has its
> > own markup, then where are you going with your objections and
> > arguments?
>
> He said that the package in question should have the output of one of
> its commands changed to not output Org syntax.  With Org being
> "essentially" plain text, and intended to be readable as plain-text in
> any software, without any special fontification, that raises the
> question of what would be changed to qualify the command's output as
> non-Org "plain text", and what the benefit would be to the user.

Here we are discussing plain text in the context of Modern English.

Consider the case of French, with four diacritics, two ligatures and
the cedilla.  Should a document written in french be considered as
plain text ?  The answer is yes.

We should start considering plain text as text in the normal language,
including diacritics, ligatures and other marks that go beyond the basic
Latin Alphabet.

I do not see any problem with having non-plain text.  Org has evolved, and
can see good reasons for org-files to include - for instance - arrow marks.
If the textual information written in the user's normal language shows up intact,
the corresponding org file should be considered plain-text.