Re: Allowing loose ordering in Org files

[John Wiegley <jwiegley@gmail.com>]

>>>>> Aaron Ecay <aaronecay@gmail.com> writes:

> Adding knobs to this parser increases the burden of those who have to build
> and maintain it.

Thank you for your reply, Aaron, I found it most illuminating.

If the answer from the maintainers is "It's more work than we want to do",
that's completely acceptable. I've been operating under the premise that it
wouldn't be difficult to add such an option (just the hook, mind you, not the
functionality behind it).

I suppose at this point it becomes a question of whether others want this as
much as I do. If it's just a handful of us, and the maintainers find the
option onerous, that's really the end of it.

> I think it’s more illuminating to think of it in terms of org as a tool:
> have the changes made it more difficult for you to accomplish your goals
> with org? Has something that was previously possible become impossible? Has
> something that was previously easy gotten harder? If the answer to one of
> these questions is yes, then we can think of ways to solve the difficulties.

There is another vector to consider, and a far more nebulous one: How does it
impact Org's "luft"? That is, the feeling of ease and comfort Org conveys in
its use.

There are many highly functional alternatives to Org that I've tried and
rejected because they lack the easy grace of Org. That grace is why I've been
able to stick with it after almost 9,000 handled tasks. Any perception of
"inertia" in a tasking system causes me to psychologically avoid it, even if I
have no rational basis for that aversion.

I sincerely hope that those with high technical motives will keep in mind the
usability of Org beyond purely technical considerations. It should say
something that a long-time user is unhappy with the way Org "feels" in 8.3.

John