From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Daniele Pizzolli Subject: Re: org the program vs. org the format Date: Tue, 09 Dec 2014 00:10:31 +0100 Message-ID: <8661dlybyw.fsf@me.localhost.invalid> References: <1595178.LtFOMbouyD@x121e> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:36654) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Xy7S3-0005vD-3u for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Mon, 08 Dec 2014 18:10:52 -0500 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Xy7Rx-0005s0-9W for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Mon, 08 Dec 2014 18:10:46 -0500 Received: from relay5-d.mail.gandi.net ([2001:4b98:c:538::197]:33650) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Xy7Rw-0005rq-Vd for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Mon, 08 Dec 2014 18:10:41 -0500 In-Reply-To: <1595178.LtFOMbouyD@x121e> (Thomas Koch's message of "Mon, 08 Dec 2014 23:00:20 +0100") List-Id: "General discussions about Org-mode." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-orgmode-bounces+geo-emacs-orgmode=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sender: emacs-orgmode-bounces+geo-emacs-orgmode=m.gmane.org@gnu.org To: Thomas Koch Cc: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org Hello Thomas, Thomas Koch writes: > Hi, > > there's a discussion on emacs-devel[1] about replacing texinfo as the > documentation format and org is mentioned. RMS correctly mentions that org- > mode is not a format but a program. > > This was also my problem when I thought about using org-mode at work in my > team. Since I'm the only emacs user we decided to use asciidoc which is a > format that can be edited and processed with different programs. > > So org-mode is a bit like PHP which also doesn't (didn't) have a specification > but the implementation is the specification. > > Would it be possible to change the format of org-mode to be a superset of e.g. > asciidoc or markdown but keep the features? Sorry for not answering directly but I am not enough knowledgeable. I like to point out that there is an ongoing attempt to specify the org syntax[1], and that there are translators[2] and tools[3] that can work with org source files. My personal workaround (but I am not sure it can scale for a community) is to have emacs and all the org dependencies packaged in a lightweight virtual machine. A set of script take care to send the org files to the vm and retrieve the results. Unfortunately my approach is quite rough, and I am not aware of any recent attempt to offer org-mode as a service[4]. If you have some degree of control of your build/continuous integration server I guess this is a viable solution. My use case is to have a clean environment where build a reproducible doc using babel, IMHO not so farm from using org for creating documentation. Like you I also have problem in sharing the result and the work, because of the high step for newcomers that do know little about emacs, command line and scripting. I think that we have some good examples for solving this, see for example the ipython notebook[5] and rmarkdown[6], both projects month after month gain more and more adoption. The great power of org is still winning for me, but I keep an eye on other approaches. Best, Daniele [1] http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-orgmode/2014-09/msg00599.html [2] http://orgmode.org/worg/org-translators.html [3] http://orgmode.org/worg/org-tools/index.html [4] http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-orgmode/2012-03/msg01097.html [5] http://ipython.org/notebook.html [6] http://rmarkdown.rstudio.com/