Re: [POLL] Should Org tempo be enabled by default? (expand templates thru e.g. "<s[TAB]")

[Bastien <bzg@gnu.org>]

Hi Nicolas,

Nicolas Goaziou <mail@nicolasgoaziou.fr> writes:

> The first important thing to understand is that, even if we enable
> `org-tempo' by default, next Org release /will break/ for some of us.
>
> - It will break because `org-tempo' is only 99% backward-compatible.  So
>   anyone having customizing templates is bound to change them.

I propose to make it 100% backward-compatible.

> - It will break because there are 9 other incompatible changes between
>   9.1 and 9.2.

It is not because many things will break that we should not fix that
one thing - quite on the contrary: it's because we think "that thing
can break, it's okay" that many things will break.

>     Org is too big. Its (lack of) design is wrong.
>
> This is not from me, but from some the Emacs developers, in particular
> Richard Stallman. You may want to read the thread "Differences between
> Org-Mode and Hyperbole" in emacs-devel mailing list archives for the
> exact quote.

Quoting RMS exact words:

  Org mode is an example of how Emacs development went astray.

  https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2016-06/msg00272.html

FWIW I agree with John's answer:

  However, the super-tight coupling of Org-mode's features allows them
  to cooperate in ways that are usually "to the point", and sometimes
  elegant.

  https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2016-06/msg00273.html

> The question is about designing Org so it fits well -- better, at
> least -- in the Emacs ecosystem. This means no unreasonable feature
> overlap and enough modularity to be re-usable from other parts in
> Emacs.

Sometimes we will need to externalize an Org feature to not reinvent
the wheel unnecessarily and to provide it as a separate package, and
orgalist.el is a good example of that.

Sometimes we will add functionalities in Org's core by reusing core
Emacs features.

Using tempo.el to let Org easily insert templates is a natural thing
to do, especially because Org *has* structures like #+begin...#+end
that exactly match the need for template insertion.

Vim users like to make fun of Emacs because it does too much.  But
Emacs users don't understand why this would be laughable... because
Emacs *rocks*.

I'd like Org to keep the same level of awesomeness.

-- 
 Bastien