Re: Citations, continued

[tsd@tsdye.com (Thomas S. Dye)]

Aloha Richard,

Richard Lawrence <richard.lawrence@berkeley.edu> writes:

> My point is not that the link syntax *can't* do enough.  Rather, my
> point is that citations are conceptually distinct from links, and if we
> are going to adopt an official syntax for them, that syntax should
> reflect this conceptual distinction.  This is better for document
> authors, because it is less work for us.  It gives us the right tool for
> this particular job, instead of re-purposing a tool that, despite its
> power, is designed for a different job.  It is thus better for the Org
> community as a whole.

I agree that citations are conceptually distinct from links, but at the
same time they share many features.  Both can refer to something outside
the Org mode document.  Both can be replaced in the Org mode export with
something from outside the Org mode document.  The fact that links can
be made to handle most users' citation needs is practical proof that the
similarities are more than superficial.

Now, I agree with you that Org mode links are not ideal for citations.
Parsing the description is humbug and error-prone, and the descriptions
look ungainly in the Org mode document.  I never remember to click
citation links in the "right" place!  There is much room for improvement
here.

You and others are advocating a separate syntax for links and citations,
which might indeed be the way to go.  I can see it being much nicer than
the current state of affairs with Org mode links.  The downside is that
it will mean learning another set of rules, in addition to the existing
rules for links.

Several years ago, Samuel Wales suggested an extensible syntax example
using link features
(https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-orgmode/2010-08/msg00404.html).
At the time it seemed to me that this was a Lisp-y approach because it
solved particular problems by generalizing or abstracting a language
feature to include particulars that had previously fallen outside its
ken.  I wanted something like this while I was working on implementing
citation links for export to LaTeX.

Would it be feasible to generalize Org mode's link syntax, or make it
extensible, so the overlap of link with citation is complete?  

All the best,
Tom

-- 
Thomas S. Dye
http://www.tsdye.com