From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: tftorrey@tftorrey.com (T.F. Torrey) Subject: Re: Macro expansion in new exporter Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2013 13:30:08 -0700 Message-ID: <87r4kluvfz.fsf@lapcat.tftorrey.com> References: <8738x1ct63.fsf@gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([208.118.235.92]:40999) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1U5MUn-0007Bn-I1 for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Tue, 12 Feb 2013 15:30:31 -0500 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1U5MUj-0003Gj-JC for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Tue, 12 Feb 2013 15:30:29 -0500 Received: from mail-da0-f44.google.com ([209.85.210.44]:45497) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1U5MUj-0003Ft-D5 for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Tue, 12 Feb 2013 15:30:25 -0500 Received: by mail-da0-f44.google.com with SMTP id z20so201206dae.17 for ; Tue, 12 Feb 2013 12:30:23 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <8738x1ct63.fsf@gmail.com> (message from Nicolas Goaziou on Tue, 12 Feb 2013 18:56:36 +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: Nicolas Goaziou Cc: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org Hello Nicolas, Thank you for your thoughtful clarification about macros in the new exporter. Probably in the long run I will find happiness using babel for what I want to do. In the meantime, however, I have a few more questions: 1. You wrote before that macros were scaled back because what they did could be done by babel. Is that really a good reason for removing functionality? Everything that Org does could be done in other tools, and yet ... we have Org. 2. You wrote to Carsten that macros could no longer contain newlines. That seems like an arbitrary limitation. Is it? 3. Is there really a reason why macro expansion is limited to a few keywords rather than all? Who would that trip up? Ditto for verbatim and code emphasis. 4. Given that macro values are easy to find in the source document, and unexpanded macros are easy to find in the output document, couldn't I just add a filter to the exporter to find and expand any unexpanded macros (and lingering newline indicators)? Is there an easy method for adding such a filter? 5. Actually, why do macros need to be an exporter problem at all? Couldn't the macro functionality be put into a separate package that used hooks and filters to connect itself into the export routine and the various back-ends (if even necessary)? Then macros could be made to do interesting things without burdening the export engine (and its maintainer) at all. Thanks again for your amazing work. Best regards, Terry -- T.F. Torrey