From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Titus von der Malsburg Subject: Re: Feature request: lists with letters Date: Fri, 03 Feb 2017 12:37:22 +0100 Message-ID: <87k297bj4d.fsf@posteo.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; boundary="=-=-="; micalg=pgp-sha256; protocol="application/pgp-signature" Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:41575) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1cZcBG-0005xL-Mg for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Fri, 03 Feb 2017 06:37:31 -0500 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1cZcBC-0005Ko-NT for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Fri, 03 Feb 2017 06:37:30 -0500 Received: from mout02.posteo.de ([185.67.36.66]:40942) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1cZcBC-0005JC-DH for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Fri, 03 Feb 2017 06:37:26 -0500 Received: from submission (posteo.de [89.146.220.130]) by mout02.posteo.de (Postfix) with ESMTPS id B39DB20A10 for ; Fri, 3 Feb 2017 12:37:24 +0100 (CET) Received: from customer (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by submission (posteo.de) with ESMTPSA id 3vFFGD0TFMz106t for ; Fri, 3 Feb 2017 12:37:23 +0100 (CET) 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: Org Mode --=-=-= Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Eric Abrahamsen wrote: >> Titus von der Malsburg writes: >> >>> Correct me if I=E2=80=99m wrong but there are a lot of things in Org th= at are >>> just about typesetting: *bold*, /italic/, _underlined_, =3Dverbatim=3D = and >>> ~code~, +strike-through+. Would you remove these things as well? >> >> I could argue that emphasis is not just about typesetting. It conveys >> a meaning. How emphasis is rendered _is_ typesetting, however. For >> example, "latex" and "beamer" export back-ends render bold text >> differently. > >It's similar to how HTML went from and to and . >The former were presentation directives. The latter are semantic >directives. They're practically the same, for reasons of backwards >compatibility, and conceptual continuity. Org's emphasis markers are >similar -- they *look* like presentation directives, but at this point >they're actually used as semantic directives. Hi Eric, I appreciate that it makes sense to make Org more consistent and to use abstract principles to guide its design. However, I=E2=80=99m not convince= d by the analogy to HTML since there are some crucial differences between Org and HTML. First, HTML is not supposed to be read by humans =E2=80=93 it is code. In contrast to that, Org is supposed to be human readable and hence, it has to deal with visual presentation to some degree. And it actually does: when I write *bold* in Emacs, a bold font is used. Nicholas=E2=80=99 point= that Org=E2=80=99s bold has nothing to do with bold fonts is therefore not entir= ely correct. Bold clearly means bold in Org, even if the beamer exporter interprets this otherwise (which I always found annoying). Secondly, HTML can afford to be purely semantic because there is CSS to deal with visual presentation. In the case of Org, there is no such thing as CSS, and the only solution is to litter the Org document with LaTeX and HTML code. Not appealing at all in my opinion. Here is an example to illustrate this: #+BEGIN_SRC org Sensation, perception, and memory are of particular interest to which group of contemporary psychologists? a. psychoanalysts b. behaviorists c. humanistic psychologists d. cognitive psychologists The correct answer is d. because =E2=80=A6 #+END_SRC For me and many others, this is a very common use case. I challenge you to implement this with current Org such that it will export correctly to HTML and PDF. If I=E2=80=99m not mistaken, this is non-trivial. If there = is no clean and simple solution for this, this strongly suggests that Org should do the pragmatic thing and support alphabetic bullet points in its exporters. More generally, I=E2=80=99m not convinced by the philosophy that Org should= be purely semantic markup and that its syntax should be changed to enforce this even if this breaks existing documents (Nicholas=E2=80=99 preferred solution). Org clearly has a certain WYSIWYG quality and precisely that is one of the reasons for its success. We should embrace the fact that Org is differnt from HTML and not force it to be something that it isn=E2=80=99t. 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