Re: Thoughts on the standardization of Org

[Eric S Fraga <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk>]

On Monday,  2 Nov 2020 at 17:22, Greg Minshall wrote:
> i wonder if it's possible (ignoring the possible utiltiy) to divide org
> mode into two (maybe three?) things.

Everything is possible!  Whether it's desirable or not is a different
question. :-)

Although at first glance, it would seem straightforward to separate
syntax from use (what you call structure versus environment), the two
are so intimately tied together that fixing the syntax could make the
latter harder to evolve.

For instance, in my recent org documents, I have added a #+calc: keyword
which I use for embedded calc lines.  This allows me to have a clearly
labelled line that Calc will recognise and that I can process using a
filter before export while also ensuring that other tools, e.g. ones
which will ignore lines starting with #, do not fail.  If the standard
did not allow for arbitrary keywords, would this limit my use?

A more subtle issue, and one that I raised earlier, is the underlying
infinite customization provided by Emacs.  Some of my macros are elisp
code.  A standard for the structure of org mode documents could exist
but using such standard-compliant documents would be shackled by not
having elisp available to process the macros.  They would really only be
usable within Emacs and hence my suggestion that what people really
want, without knowing it, is Emacs everywhere. ;-) [1]

(as an aside, Emacs as an LSP could be interesting, especially if
network based)


Footnotes:
[1] for my sins, I've recently had to use various tools for writing
     (text & data) including Word, Excel and Teams chats: how *do*
     people work efficiently in some of these environments?  No
     abbreviations, no registers, no embedded Calc, no line highlighting
     (I keep losing the cursor), ...

-- 
: Eric S Fraga via Emacs 28.0.50, Org release_9.4-61-ga88806.dirty