From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Adam Porter Subject: Re: [RFC] Document level property drawer Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2019 11:08:19 -0500 Message-ID: <871rv3cumk.fsf@alphapapa.net> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:46274) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1iNJD3-00038t-9f for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Wed, 23 Oct 2019 12:10:06 -0400 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1iNJD1-00040n-TV for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Wed, 23 Oct 2019 12:10:05 -0400 Received: from 195-159-176-226.customer.powertech.no ([195.159.176.226]:57854 helo=blaine.gmane.org) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1iNJD1-000407-MV for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Wed, 23 Oct 2019 12:10:03 -0400 Received: from list by blaine.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.89) (envelope-from ) id 1iNJD0-0012Af-J3 for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Wed, 23 Oct 2019 18:10:02 +0200 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" To: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org Gustav, There are a lot of deprecation recommendations in your attached document: > I propose to depricate property-keywords > I propose to depricate the Options-keyword > I propose to relabel these keywords as document keywords > I propose to depricate the #+CATEGORY syntax > I propose to depricate the #+FILETAGS syntax > I propose to depricate the #+COLUMNS syntax > I propose to depricate the #+ARCHIVE syntax > I propose to depricate the TODO-keywords > I propose to depricate the priorities-keyword > I propose to depricate the tags-keyword > I propose to depricate the link-keyword > I propose to depricate the constants-keyword > I propose to depricate the setupfile-keyword > I propose to depricate the Macro-keyword The thoroughness of your investigation is admirable. However, I propose that we don't deprecate any of those. Org has been around for over a decade now. Such drastic changes would not serve users well. Note that I'm taking your use of the word "deprecate" to mean what it's expected to mean in this context: that the software developers recommend against using it, with the intention to eventually remove support for the feature. We shouldn't be removing any such features from Org. Not only would it not serve users well, but it would make the software much more complicated. As it stands, finding, e.g. a #+CATEGORY: keyword and getting its value is as simple as: (save-excursion (goto-char (point-min)) (when (re-search-forward (rx bol "#+CATEGORY:" (1+ blank) (group (1+ nonl))) nil t) (match-string 1))) Hiding those keywords in drawers means that either: a) Eligible drawers must be located, and then the desired property must be searched for inside of them. b) Possibly valid properties must be located, and each one must be confirmed to be inside an eligible drawer. What benefit would this added complexity serve? To put the keywords in one place in the document? There are already multiple ways to achieve that. I can't emphasize enough how important stability and consistency is for Org and its file formats right now. As I've said, there are new implementations in development, which have the potential to bring a lot of publicity and new users to Org. For example, this one was mentioned on a Hacker News post a few days ago: https://github.com/mickael-kerjean/filestash In the same HN post were examples of implementations for Vim and VSCode. Already, especially in the VSCode ones, there were apparent incompatibilities in their implementations of the Org file format. As well, there are now parsers in JavaScript, Python, and Rust. Markdown is by far the most popular plain-text format, and has been for years, but it has long suffered from competing, slightly incompatible flavors and implementations. Reddit has theirs, GitHub has theirs, etc. Org's file format may finally be gaining some momentum. Let's not jeopardize Org's chances by making implementors' job more difficult than it already is.