Re: [O] why is 'no' the default value of :tangle

[Christian Moe]

Guido Van Hoecke writes:
> I am wondering why the default value of header argument :tangle is 'no'
> rather than 'yes'.

FWIW, the default makes sense to me. A document might contain lots of
little code blocks for one purpose or another (testing, little
utilities, version archive, etc.)  that you don't want included in the
tangled product.

> Back to google-calendar.org as an example.
>
> Is it normal that whomever wants to use the embedded elisp file needs
> to edit the source and e.g. insert a '#+PROPERTY: tangle yes'?
>
> It is clear that this file will need to be tangled by every single
> person that wants to use the embedded code, so should the default not
> allow for tangling without having the edit the input file?

Well, if you're distributing code for others to use in the form of
source blocks in Org documents, it may be a courtesy to set `:tangle
yes'.

But that doesn't necessarily give users the tangled result where they
want it on their system, with the filename they want, so they will often
have to edit it anyway.

Yours,
Christian