Re: Why don't datetrees use timestamps?

[joakim@verona.se]

Nick Dokos <ndokos@gmail.com> writes:

D> Reuben Thomas <rrt@sc3d.org> writes:
>
>> On 16 March 2015 at 16:52, Subhan Michael Tindall <SubhanT@familycareinc.org> wrote:
>>
>>     You can use a custom capture template and have timestamps of various sorts inserted.
>>    
>>     For example, I have one datetree I use that inserts a date/time stamp using %T (%t gives only date, not time)
>>    
>>     See the documentation for capture (hit C-c C C  to get into the customize interface then scroll down)
>>
>> ​ My question was about the datetree entry headings of the form "2015-03-16 Monday". These aren't controlled by the template. I was interested to know why these
>> headings look very much like timestamps (and effectively are timestamps, though at the top level they mention just a year and at the second level just a year and a
>> month), but aren't actual timestamps.
>>
>> Eric Fraga said "I don't think it would make sense for the headlines in the date-tree to have time stamps"; but my question is not why they don't have time stamps,
>> but why they ARE not time stamps (purely in the formal sense: the information they contain is already effectively a time stamp, as far as I can see).
>>
>
> This is third-hand knowledge and guesswork on my part, but I think that
> datetrees are used for things like journals: "that's what I did that
> day".  Datetrees just give you a hierarchical structure of nodes for
> easy navigation: you can look at your journal and open and close nodes
> at will, so you can navigate to the date of interest. The fact that the
> third-level headings look like timestamps is purely coincidental.
>
> Timestamps are given to things that are going to appear in an agenda:
> "that's what I have to do today, tomorrow or next week". They are
> completely orthogonal to datetrees in that respect.
>
> The stuff that ends up in your journal is stuff that (mostly) did not
> appear in the agenda: all the little things that you did that day,
> probably unplanned (otherwise they would be in the agenda!)
>
> Not that the headings in a datetree couldn't be made into timestamps;
> but that's not what people use datetrees for[fn:1]. The one thing that
> would be facilitated if they *were* timestamps, would be clicking on one
> and getting the day agenda for that long-gone day, so you could
> reminisce about the other things that you did that day, that did not end
> up in your journal. Maybe that's enough reason to make them
> timestamps, but there are other (perhaps less convenient) ways
> to do that.
>
> Of course, I may be suffering from a failure of imagination: you might
> be using datetrees in a completely different way, one where having the
> heading be a timestamp is a very good idea, but I can't think of any:
> if you *have* something in mind, do tell.

I often feel the same thing, that datetrees should use timestamps(the
'quiet' kind). The main reason is that I often write a journal entry the
day after, and it would be easier to manipulate the date like you do a
time stamp.

>
>> I was hoping to discover the rationale for the design from a developer :)
>
> You'll have to ask Carsten about it: he invented datetrees I believe (as
> well as most of org), but he does not frequent org circles much these
> days.
>
> Footnotes:
>
> [fn:1] Remember however my caveat about third-hand knowledge and
> guesswork: I don't use datetrees.
>
> Nick
>
>
>

-- 
Joakim Verona