Re: Syntax Proposal: Multi-line Table Cells/Text Wrapping

[Tim Cross <theophilusx@gmail.com>]

Atlas Cove <Atlas48@gmx.com> writes:

> On 18/03/2021 14:26, Timothy wrote:
>>Interesting suggestion you have here.
>>On a related note, I wonder if you might have seen this thread I raised
>>a while ago: https://orgmode.org/list/87k0v361x9.fsf@gmail.com/
>>The discussion has died down (unfortunately), but the idea is still on
>>my mind.
>>
>>--
>>Timothy
>
> I'd like to propose to fold my discussion into yours.

In principal, it wold be great to be able to support multi-row columns.
However, I'm not sure how easily this can actually be implemented in a
consistent and maintainable manner.

From watching these discussions in the past, I think the big stumbling
block is how easily multi-row columns can be added and maintained in the
various export formats. Some are easy, like HTML, but others are less
so. In particular, I know from my many years working with Latex,
multi-row columns are not straight-forward. There are lots of edge cases
to deal with and it is hard to get a consistent result programatically. 

Proposals like this one can seem simple and straight-forward on the
surface. However, implementation is another matter. All of the exporters
will need to be updated to handle this new syntax and it will probably
take a fair bit of work to handle it correctly in just plain org files
(formatting, highlighting etc).

If this was something people were prepared to put the time into
implementing, I think it must be done in a completely separate feature
branch and would need to be fully tested (including all back end
exporters) before it can be merged into the mainline branch. It would
also be important to profile and ensure it does not have significant
impact on performance.

I am a little concerned about the expansion and addition of features in
org mode when there seems to already be a challenge with respect to
maintenance and bug fixing. Personally, I would prefer an org mode which
is consistent and reliable over one with large numbers of features that
is less stable and slower.

-- 
Tim Cross