Re: [O] Effort entry and confusing effort estimates

[Lawrence Mitchell]

Bastien wrote:
> Hi Ken,

> Ken Mankoff <address@hidden> writes:

>> But I'm still confused what 'org-set-effort' expects/interprets
>> compared to 'org-clock-modify-effort-estimate'. Any clarification
>> will be much appreciated.

> `org-set-effort' allows you to _set_ the effort value.

> `org-clock-modify-effort-estimate' allows you to either set the effort
> value (e.g. if you enter 1:30, the old value will be replaced by this
> one) or to increment/decrement the effort value by using +mm or
> +n[hdwmy] -- e.g. entering +1d will increment the current value by 1
> day.  "1 day" is interpreted depending on `org-effort-durations',
> which see.

I think the problem is slightly more complicated.

org-set-effort does:

read some effort duration

(org-entry-put nil "Effort" duration-we-just-read)

org-clock-modify-effort-estimate does:

read some effort duration
(org-duration-string-to-minutes value)
convert this duration in minutes back to a string
(org-minutes-to-clocksum-string minutes-corresponding-to-value)
(org-entry-put nil "Effort" duration-we-just-calculated)

So org-set-effort doesn't do any conversion of the effort string
we enter.

org-clock-modify-effort-estimate does do conversion.  However, it
does it badly.

org-duration-string-to-minutes always uses org-effort-durations
to convert the input string to minutes.  However,
org-minutes-to-clocksum-string /only/ uses org-effort-durations
if org-time-clocksum-use-effort-durations is non-nil (not the
default).

The problem boils down to:

(let ((org-time-clocksum-use-effort-durations nil))
  (= (org-duration-string-to-minutes "3d 2h") ;; what the user entered
     (org-duration-string-to-minutes          ;; what gets inserted
       (org-minutes-to-clocksum-string
         (org-duration-string-to-minutes "3d 2h")))))

=> nil

(let ((org-time-clocksum-use-effort-durations t))
  (= (org-duration-string-to-minutes "3d 2h") ;; what the user entered
     (org-duration-string-to-minutes          ;; what gets inserted
       (org-minutes-to-clocksum-string
         (org-duration-string-to-minutes "3d 2h")))))

=> t

I would argue that

(org-duration-string-to-minutes
  (org-minutes-to-clocksum-string
    (org-duration-string-to-minutes some-value)))

Should be a no-op.  But that is only the case if
org-time-clocksum-use-effort-durations is t.


Lawrence

-- 
Lawrence Mitchell <address@hidden>