Re: A new module for Org-mode: Org-X

[Karl Voit <devnull@Karl-Voit.at>]

* John Wiegley <jwiegley@gmail.com> wrote:
> Karl Voit <devnull@Karl-Voit.at> writes:
>
>> Wow. This looks like exactly what I want to achieve with the
>> «Memacs» project on [1]. We certainly need to exchange ideas and
>> code :-)
>
> They sure do sound similar in spirit!!  It's like we are tuned to the same
> wavelength. :)

*g*

>> Our plan is to use Python to simply generate org (archive) files from
>> different sources since we do have no ELISP knowledge and Python does
>> already have beautiful libraries for RegEx, string manipulation, XML, JSON,
>
> I have to say that one of my personal requirements is that such a system be
> implemented as much in Emacs Lisp as possible.  I hate debugging code that's
> "in between" Emacs and some other system.  Plus, I have excellent
> documentation, debugging and profiling resources available to me in Emacs, but
> I've never found anything close to equivalent in Python (and I've tried them
> all: ipython, pydb, ropemacs, etc).  Developing in Emacs is just so efficient
> and fun, that I do it as much for recreation as to get things done.

I am sure that ELISP is cool. But here, we do not have any LISP
knowledge at all and I hardly know anyone in our hacking community
who is really into ELISP I am afraid. So I have to stick to my
(local) resources.

In my point of view, it is no problem at all because the «API» we do
have is the format of Org-mode files. Memacs is - unlike your system
- not done with Emacs at all: Python scripts generate Org-mode files
and that is all.

This is a fundamental difference in our attempts - I know.

Maybe our systems could cooperate like Memacs doing
in-between-filtering and Org-X the integration to Org-mode or
similar.

>> We do not have any code yet but two of my students began to work on the
>> project.
>
> Are they Lisp programmers?  

No. I know not a single ELISP programmer here at my side :-(

From my point of view - and I am sure this may differ from reality!
- ELISP is some kind of niche language that is slowly going down in
popularity. Again: this is not what I want it to be, this is my very
personal experience.

> If so, perhaps we could combine our efforts.

Sure. But we can not provide ELISP code. So my current plan is
still: stick to Python, let the finished (auto-generated) Org-mode
files be the «API». It's better to do *something* (in Python) than
to do nothing at all.

> Since my own needs are immediate for this project, I should have the first
> three backends for Org-X completed by month's end.  By that time, the core API
> should be stable and I'll be ready to merge this code into main.  I've also
> been writing for org.texi at the same time, so it will come fully documented
> when it arrives.

I sure will take a look at it!

We do not have any plan when first Nexus and Memacs will be out. We
are still in the early planning phase.

-- 
Karl Voit