Org-mode and taskpaper

[Carsten Dominik <dominik@science.uva.nl>]

Dear all,

the recent discussion about Taskpaper in the thread started
by Clint Laskowski has made me realize how much we have lost
out way with Org-mode.  Org-mode was once a compact and
easy tool just like taskpaper.  In fact, looking at the
features of taskpaper, one might think that they had an older
version of Org-mode as model and goal of their development.

But in the meantime, mostly due to a mountain of demands
from this group, it has become so bloated with mostly
useless features, that all but the most geeky users are
totally confused by this.

Reading this thread has really cost me a lot of sleep, but
I have now come to the conclusion that we need to turn
the tide and downscope Org-mode significantly.  Luckily
I have recently put much effort into splitting org.el
into a number of separate files with separate features.
This allows us a very simple and straight-forward path
for this down-scoping effort.  I can simply try to remove
one of these separate files after the other and then see
how much complaining I will get for this.  In this way,
we can make this process community-based, but I will
need you to frequently update org-mode and to give me
feedback during the process.

Those of you who actively follow the git repository
might have noticed that this morning I have started
by removing org-table.el, the file containing the
table editor.  Unfortunately this also means that the
clocktable support no longer works, but I have always
considered this as a sickening feature anyway, which
tries to streamline our life, but in fact only leads to
more work, and to more time taken away from spending with
partners, kids and friends.

I hope that you can all agree with my conclusion.  If not,
than I am confident that with time you will realize
just how important today's decision was.

- Carsten