Re: [Orgmode] [org-babel] Does org-babel needs some simplification?

[Eric Schulte]

Hi Torsten,

I love the idea of a "Babel for dummies" manual, and I'm an even bigger
fan of the manual being produced by user's of Babel (i.e. not myself).
I'll be more than happy to support this effort in any way.

Also, the beta-testing role you mention could be extremely helpful.  In
the absence of a comprehensive test suite it can be hard for Dan and I
to exhaustively check new features against all of the possible languages
and header argument combinations.  A filter of language-savvy users
exercising new Org-babel changes could very likely save the "Every day"
babel user (is there such a thing?) from many headaches.  Maybe
something like a sandbox-babel branch of the git repository would be
appropriate as a testing ground for new Babel commits.

That said the rate at which Babel is currently being developed is not
sustainable (at least not if I'm doing all of the development), and the
number of daily changes should drop dramatically in the next couple of
weeks.  So such a group may find itself without much work to do in the
not to distant future -- not that that would necessarily be a bad thing.

Thanks! -- Eric

Torsten Wagner <address@hidden> writes:

> Hi,
>
> many thanks for the nice thoughts and posts.
> To sum up, I think it might not be easy to remove parts of org-babel
> since it is difficult to determine and a highly personal decision to
> define what is important and what is unimportant.
>
> Nevertheless Carten and Eric pointed out that the overhelming feature
> set of org-babel, the fact that you could achive the same thing in
> different ways and the missing of a "org-babel for dummies" might be a
> problem for new org-babel users as well as for infrequent users.
>
> Recently org-mode got his "org-mode for dummies" short manual. I guess
> in the case of org-babel it might make more sense to create rather
> typical examples for particular languages. This manuals could consist of
> a typical example and of a template for this example which makes it easy
> for beginners to fill in there own code and text.
>
> Since Eric and the other org-babel and org-mode contributors are already
> fully occupied with keeping org-babel and org-mode running, I would
> suggest to collect a group of org-babel manual supporters. If possible
> for each supported language one. This group could write up standard
> situations for the particular language and maintain those manuscripts
> whenever org-babel introduces some changes. In fact this group could
> also serve as a kind of beta-testers for org-babel by trying on request
> from e.g., Eric to compile there examples with the new org-babel
> versions. I know there are some standard tests but I guess the do not go
> that fare.
>
> I guess, the manual maintainers do NOT have to be experts in both
> org-mode resp. org-babel nore they have to be experts in the supported
> language. Its more about the kind of standard stuff and maybe, to
> complex stuff even scare people. More things like "How to create a
> measurement protocol with org-babel and python", How to evaluate and
> report data analysis with org-babel and R", etc.
>
> To make it more easy for both the readers and the maintainers a kind of
> template for such manuals might be helpful. This would help to find the
> same information at the same locations and make a comparison e.g.
> between the use of R and python possible.
>
> I'am not an expert for both org-* and python and I'm often very limited
> in time. However, I would try to maintain a "python and org-babel" manual.
>
> If there are more people who are interested to act as a kind of manual
> maintainers I would like to discuss with you how a template might look like.
>
> Best regards
>
> Torsten
>
>
>
> On 06/29/2010 12:51 PM, Torsten Wagner wrote:
>> Dear All,
>> 
>> as a (quite, but happy) org-bable user of the first hour I followed up
>> the development process actively.
>> Nevertheless, some weeks or months pass where I had no need for
>> org-babel (yes, really strange I know).
>> 
>> Whenever I come back to org-babel, it takes me a huge amount of time to
>> find myself back again in the syntax. Often I spend a day or two heavily
>> reading the website and manual again to figure out how to make it working.
>> 
>> There are so many options. tangle files, results, scripting mode,
>> sessions, noweb, lot, etc.
>> 
>> Just yesterday, I fighted again to make a simple python script running
>> as desired to generate an automatic report. I did this dozen of times
>> and even by using some old report as template I still struggle with it.
>> Comparing old reports I noticed that I did it in many different ways.
>> Tangeling all snipplets, using noweb syntax, with and without session
>> support, etc.
>> 
>> Don't get me wrong, I really love org-babel and I think it is really
>> great. I just wonder wether it has become too complex and too difficult
>> to use to attract most of the org-mode people. Esp. considering people
>> who use it not on a regular basis.
>> 
>> Best regards
>> 
>> Torsten
>
>
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