Re: Differences between Org-Mode and Hyperbole

[Allen S. Rout]

On 06/29/2016 10:34 AM, Richard Stallman wrote:

> The reason I don't know Org mode is that I'd have to start by learning
> basic Org mode, which I am not interested in, before I see what its
> specific features are.  At that point, I gave up.

IMO, The simplest "start learning Org mode" case is to write plain text
with some structure, export the text with all default behavior, and be
pleasantly surprised at how sufficient it is for e.g. a whitepaper or
other professional communication.

I've written TeX and LaTeX since the 80's.  There's much to love about
it, but much to keep track of.  Since I started using Org as my "source
code" for documents,   I've been able to use as much TeX clue as I care
to, and ignore everything else, because it more or less Just Works.

There's not much overhead in exercising this use case:  Just compose a
speech, and insert

*  headers
** representing some
*** heirarchy

you feel appropriate.


Not to be whiny, but if you aren't willing to give that a shot, I think
it's reasonable to interpret that you have set your cap against Org,
rather than rejecting it on the merits.   Nothing wrong with that, but
it helps folks understand that there's no point prosecuting the
persuasive goal. :)

---

The next iteration is when you want to include a figure or such, and
instead of copying a PNG from the filesystem, you conceive the desire:
"Here's the gnuplot process to generate the image I want... I wish I
could just generate the image at document 'compile' time..."   and hey
presto, you can.

For me, that was the thing that turned org-mode from an interesting
environment into pure electronic heroin.  I have infrastructure status
report documents which contain all the instructions necessary to query
my universe for the data necessary to generate the report.   Critically,
all the instructions are _enclosed_ in the document, which represents an
aesthetic and semantic completeness I find very powerful.   It's the
literate programming thing:  Here's what I'm going to do, and [here it
is being done].


- Allen S. Rout