Re: [POLL] Setting `org-adapt-indentation' to nil by default?

[Jim Porter <jporterbugs@gmail.com>]

On 5/1/2021 11:09 PM, Bastien wrote:
> With `electric-indent-mode' being activated by default in Emacs, the
> current behavior is that RET after a headline moves the point below
> the beginning of this headline, not the beginning of the line, which
> might surprise users.
> 
> Indentation is quite sensitive: what do you think of setting a new
> default value of nil for `org-adapt-indentation' in Org 9.5?

I much prefer the current behavior as of 9.4.5. I'll try to explain my 
reasoning. Of course like anyone, I'm biased, and got used to indenting 
the text under a heading (pre-9.4) simply because that's where it ends 
up if I hit TAB; in most other modes, TAB indents a line to where it 
"should" be, so I reasoned that text under a heading should be indented.

Visually, I find indented text easier to scan. When my org document is 
fully-expanded, I can still quickly glance at the left margin to see 
when the outline level changes. It's much harder for me to do so when 
there's a bunch of text that's flush with the left margin. 
`org-indent-mode' can also do this, but I took to heart the Org Mode 
motto ("Your life in plain text"): I try to ensure my org files look as 
similar as possible regardless of whether they're opened in Emacs or a 
plain text editor. Hence, I put the indentation in the actual org file 
(and use `auto-fill-mode' to wrap the text)[1]. This makes it easier for 
me to send a non-Emacs-using colleague one of my org files while 
ensuring it's (somewhat) readable for them.

Finally, as someone who primarily uses Emacs to write software, I find 
the current behavior to be more consistent with the other modes I use 
most often. In all programming modes I'm familiar with, hitting RET will 
create a new line, indented to the appropriate depth. For a 
whitespace-dependent language like Python, this is really the *maximum* 
depth that would make sense.

However, compared to Org Mode, python-mode has an advantage: if I hit 
RET and the indentation isn't what I want (e.g. I was writing an `if' 
block and now I'm done with it), I can hit TAB repeatedly to cycle 
indentation levels. Org Mode does this when you've typed the "* " for a 
heading (or plain list), but not for a blank line. If I'm typing some 
text below a heading and hit RET to write some more, I might realize 
that I *actually* want a new heading. I could try to type "* ", but as 
I'm already indented, Org Mode rightly treats that as a plain list. 
Currently, I just hit undo and then try again with C-RET to make a new 
heading, but it might be nice to allow cycling indent levels on an 
otherwise-empty line.

This reasoning might not apply for users who primarily use Emacs to edit 
text documents, as I'm sure the indentation logic there is different 
from editing source code. In that case, you could perhaps say that 
`org-adapt-indentation' == t is for programmers, and == nil for writers. :)

Ultimately, I'm not sure this will convince anyone who disagrees, and 
I'm not even sure my *goal* is to convince people (so long as I'm still 
able to configure things the way I like). I just wanted to provide a 
perspective from someone on the other side of the fence.

- Jim

[1] This doesn't quite work for links specified like [[url][title]], but 
I see that as just a minor hiccup.