Re: "Why is emacs so square?"

[Nicolas Goaziou]

Hello,

Richard Stallman <address@hidden> writes:

> When you tell me that Emacs has important facilities -- doing jobs
> very different from outline editing -- that I don't know about because
> they have been integrated as "part of Org mode", my conclusion is that
> we should have integrated them differently.  Those other facilities
> should not be treated as "part of Org mode".  They should be separate
> facilities, each one documented separately, and usable by itself.
>
> I would like to see those facilities separated from Org mode and made
> into separate first-class subsystems.  Then they can be documented in
> the Emacs manual.

There may be a misconception about what Org really is. It is unfortunate
if its documentation lets one think the mode is about outline editing.

  Org is both a lightweight markup language, and a major mode to edit
  it. Versatile, it is useful for keeping notes, maintaining TODO lists,
  and project planning. Powerful, it may be used as a complete authoring
  system, with support for literate programming and reproducible
  research.

Outline editing is but the design choice that was made for the major
mode to edit documents with Org syntax. To put it differently, the
common factor between the "other facilities" you mention, whatever they
are, is not the outliner part, but the markup language behind it.

As a consequence, it probably makes little sense to separate such
"facilities"---the term would need to be properly defined in the current
context, tho---, because each of them implies full support for the whole
Org syntax.

As a side node, there are attempts to proceed the other way. For example
OrgTbl minor mode, included in Org for historical reasons, edits---a
subset of---Org tables in other major modes. Likewise, Orgalist, found
in GNU ELPA, ports---a subset of---Org lists to other major modes. None
of them equates its native counterpart for the reasons explained above.

Conversely, I'm thinking out loud here, there is one external facility
that I would like to see integrated into Emacs proper, so major modes,
such as Org, could use it. It is Citeproc.el, a library for rendering
citations and bibliographies in styles described in the Citation Style
Language (CSL).

Regards,

-- 
Nicolas Goaziou