Re: About commit named "Allow multi-line properties to be specified in property blocks"

[Samuel Wales <samologist@gmail.com>]

Something that has not been mentioned yet, as a possible
background.

One nice thing about subtrees (the properties drawer) for
control is that they are nicely (essentially lexically)
scoped and nested as in many programming languages.

One issue with blocks for control is that they are
ambiguously scoped.

  - It isn't immediately clear whether they apply to the
    whole file or below the block.
    + If they apply to the whole file, it can be confusing
      to have them hidden in some subtree but have global
      effect.  Moving a subtree into the file can
      surprisingly change state for all other subtrees.
    + If they apply below the block, and you sort subtrees,
      those that used to be above or below surprisingly
      change state.


Of course those who work on a file basis still need some way
of specifying control for the file.  And that can be at the
top of the file.  I am not saying there should be no way to
do that.  Just pointing out something not yet mentioned in
these threads.

Maybe scoping is one reason underlying the unease some have
with using blocks for control where there is no equivalent
subtree option.

I avoid file-level operations partly for that reason.

===

One interesting possibility is to have a dedicated top-level
entry for all file-level control purposes.  Then it's clear
where everything should go, and syntax can even follow the
subtree syntax.

However, that might be too radical for this discussion.


Samuel

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