Re: Org-mode versus Taskpaper - now for real

[Rick Moynihan <rick@calicojack.co.uk>]

Joel J. Adamson wrote:
> Manish <mailtomanish.sharma@gmail.com> writes:
> 
>>   On Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 3:25 PM, Rick Moynihan wrote:
>>   >  Emacs might be Org's greatest ally, but it's also simultaneously
>>   > Org's biggest problem.  My point here, isn't to bash Emacs, it is
>>   > what it is, and it's damn good...  But with apologies to RMS, it
>>   > is the product of a radical, hair-brained, compiler-writing,
>>   > AI-lab, academic!!  You really couldn't find anyone further away
>>   > from the mainstream computer user!
>>   >
>>
>> I am so glad that that "radical, hair-brained, compiler-writing,
>> AI-lab, academic" did what he did.
> 
> I absolutely agree.
> 
> First of all, do you want to be a mainstream computer user?  I don't.

Absolutely not.  But techie's have a tendency to assume things are 
simple, intuitive and obvious, when they're no where near.  Apple has 
for example made a fortune by making things seem simple and intuitive. 
   Amazon felt it necessary to patent one-click, because two-clicks is 
too hard for many people.  Taskpaper appears to me to be a similar 
attempt and follows this design philosophy.

My point was only to illustrate that this is where the difference in 
simplicity lies.  It's not in the complexity of the file format (as org 
files can be as simple as you want), it's in everything else!

> Secondly, rms was pretty close to mainstream computer users in 1983.
> Consider historical context.
> 
> And while you're still considering historical context, consider that
> most of the "developments" in computer use since then, outside of
> hardware improvements, have been in the *wrong* direction, toward less
> concise, less expressive and overall less powerful computer use
> behavior.

Agreed.  But sometimes simplicity helps everyone without a loss of power.

R.