Re: Using Org for a dissertation

[Markus Grebenstein <post@mgrebenstein.de>]

Hi Richard,

I recently have written my dissertation in orgmode.

I switched to latex for the final 4 weeks between the correction version 
(completely written in orgmode) and the final version.

What I liked about org:
- Outlining functionality
- Synopsis drawers and view
- Markup
- Compiling subtrees
- noexport tag
- tagging

What I disliked/ preferred in auctex:
- missing footnote folding in stable version
- footnotes frequently lead to trouble with overlapping latex groups.
- missing/spare syntax highlighting
- reference handling in especial w.r.t headings (if you change the 
heading you use the reference)
- debugging
- missing subfigure abilities
- compile time i.e. if you have much babel-snippets
- whitespace handling i.e. after e.g. \si{someunit} (you cannot place a 
footnote at the place where it should be.

The main reasons to switch to auctex in the end for me has been the 
much  better debugging possibilities and the better reftex integration 
(you have to fix quite a bit of wrong references in the final stage of 
your work. Furthermore, I had to do some additional time consuming 
debugging of the orgmode markup several times (most frequently related 
to org-babel).

I would do it again but I'd switch to latex as soon as the basic 
structure of the text is fixed.

Just my 2 cents.

Best Markus