Re: Shower thought: submit an IETF RFC to register Org as a MIME type

["Lennart C. Karssen" <lennart@karssen.org>]

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Hi all,

On 01-10-2020 05:40, TEC wrote:
> 
> Bastien <bzg@gnu.org> writes:
> 
>> If there is absolutely zero burden put on the shoulders of Org's
>> maintainers, then I'm all for it.
> 
> From the look of things, there's just effort in the initial creation.
> 
>>> I think it would serve well the proliferation and
>>> popularization of org-mode.
>>
>> Agreed.
> 
> This is the main reason why I'm a fan of the idea :)
> 
>> Is anyone willing to check that there are no constraints?
> 
> I've read through https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6838 and I couldn't see
> any constraints placed on us beyond the initial registration's
> requirements.
> 
> For that, I think a formal syntax specification would be needed. Perhaps
> https://orgmode.org/worg/dev/org-syntax.html will do? It looks complete.


One of the things I have been wondering about with regard to Org syntax
is the use of capital letters vs. lowercase ones for e.g. blocks and
options.

The org-syntax.html document linked above lists blocks as
#+BEGIN_NAME/#+END_NAME, #+KEY: VALUE, #+CALL: VALUE, #+ATTR_BACKEND,
etc. all in uppercase.

On the other hand, the manual states in the introduction: "Keywords and
blocks are written in uppercase to enhance their readability, but you
can use lowercase in your Org files."

At the same time, when I run org-export-dispatch to insert the default
export template (via C-c C-e # default on Org 9.3) I get all #+options,
#+title, etc. lines in lowercase.


Wouldn't it be a good idea to standardise on either uppercase or
lowercase? Limitting the standard to only one of the two case options
will probably spark a huge debate on which one to choose because one
side would have to change their behaviour. But at least for the Org code
that is generated automatically like in the above case of the default
export template I think choosing a 'preferred' option that is consistent
with the syntax document and the manual would help.


Best regards,

Lennart.

> 
> I'm hoping we could then use https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7763
> (registration of text/markdown) as a template, where we could just link
> to the syntax specification.
> 
> Perhaps it could be worth putting the syntax spec under the main site as
> something like orgmode.org/syntax-spec.html.
> 
> I've also been considering spinning off the manual into a bit of a
> specification document (e.g. less of a guide / how-to, stripped down to
> just the bare information), so perhaps
> orgmode.org/specification.html#syntax ? I'd really like some second
> opinions.
> 
>> Is anyone willing to move forward with this registration?
> 
> In about two months, I am.
> 
> It looks like creating and draft and then emailing it to
> media-types@iana.org would probably be the best approach.
> 
> All the best,
> 
> Timothy.
> 

-- 
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L.C. Karssen
The Netherlands

lennart@karssen.org
http://blog.karssen.org
GPG key ID: A88F554A
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