Re: [TASK] Ensure built-in babel backend consistency (standard header support) and ad documentation to the manual (was: [Pre-PATCH v2] Add the capability to specify lexical scope in tangled files (was: Add new :lexical header argument))

["Thomas S. Dye" <tsd@tsdye.online>]

Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@posteo.net> writes:

> "Thomas S. Dye" <tsd@tsdye.online> writes:
>
>> IIRC, there wasn't much discussion.   The current situation 
>> doesn't seem ripe for documentation in the manual.
>>
>> Here are some potential hurdles:
>>  - there are likely too many built-in backends;
>> ...
>> One way forward might distinguish between babel backends for 
>> GNU 
>> software and babel backends for non-GNU software, with the 
>> former 
>> built in, guaranteed to be consistent to some standard (which 
>> needs to be formulated), and documented in the manual and the 
>> latter moved to contrib or a package archive, with 
>> documentation 
>> (if any) on Worg.
>
> We have recently reduced the number of built-in backends:
> https://list.orgmode.org/orgmode/87bl9rq29m.fsf@gnu.org/
> Presumably, all that's left is useful is worth maintaining 
> upstream.
>
Yes, thanks for the link.  I read this thread as a first step 
toward enlisting maintainers for built-in backends. This effort 
had some success--20 packages have a designated maintainer--but 
still leaves 23 packages for the Org mode programmers, which seems 
like a lot to me.

>>  - the built-in backends are a mixed bag--ob-lua seems 
>>  half-finished to me, though I don't program in lua and 
>>  struggled 
>>  to set up the language to write the documentation stub on 
>>  Worg;
>
> AFAIK, most people assume that built-in backends are stable.
> If they are not, it is a bug anyway. Or we should declare that 
> we do not
> maintain them.
>
I thought "declare that we do not maintain them" meant "move them 
to org-contrib".  I'm not sure what you have in mind here.

>>  - nearly a dozen of the built-in babel backends lack 
>>  documentation outside the source code (see 
>>  https://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/babel/languages/index.html#orgbc466c5); 
>>  and
>
>>  - language support is inconsistent (see 
>>  https://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/babel/languages/lang-compat.html), 
>>  which introduces complications for language agnostic literate 
>>  programming.
>
> That's what we should work on.

Wonderful!

All the best,
Tom

-- 
Thomas S. Dye
https://tsdye.online/tsdye