4 ms·

What advantages to find yourself having by using Org compared to say outline-minor-mode?

by daptaq 4y ago

Jtsummers 4y ago
Org provides a lot more features than an outline mode. Org-babel lets you mix code with prose, and execute (for many languages) the code in the code blocks. It works cleanly with the agenda/diary system. You can schedule items, marking both due and start dates and times. Tag items and query based on tags, it's a very handy thing.
- daptaq 4y ago
  I recognize the advantage of tags, but everything else seems superfluous for a personal configuration. For beginners it just one more thing that can go wrong. I have read dozens of supposedly literate configurations on the web, and most of them are just header, begin_src, code, end_src, repeat. There are rare exceptions, but these cannot be generated automatically.
  - BeetleB 4y ago
    > but everything else seems superfluous for a personal configuration. I've not used outline minor mode, but reading up on it, it seems it's merely for presentation vs editing. As an example, can I move a heading and its subtree to another part of the document? Doing so makes managing configs much easier. > I have read dozens of supposedly literate configurations on the web, and most of them are just header, begin_src, code, end_src, repeat. Most code I've read is crap. That doesn't mean one can't write code well. My own literate configuration is probably 80+% as you describe, but it's the remaining 10-20% where I do write some prose, with links, etc that make it worthwhile. I agree that it is yet another level of complexity for beginners. My own personal experience, though, was it would be much harder to debug plain init.el files than the org ones. In any case, I have no objection to using outline-minor-mode instead. I just think that many users are going to learn org mode sooner or later, and it's less cognitive load to just jump into org mode. I'm pretty sure most people who put their config in outline mode will eventually migrate it to org anyway :-) And I don't see any actual advantage to outline minor mode in general.

What advantages to find yourself having by using Org compared to say outline-minor-mode?

by daptaq 4y ago

What advantages to find yourself having by using Org compared to say outline-minor-mode?

Org provides a lot more features than an outline mode. Org-babel lets you mix code with prose, and execute (for many languages) the code in the code blocks. It works cleanly with the agenda/diary system. You can schedule items, marking both due and start dates and times. Tag items and query based on tags, it's a very handy thing.

daptaq 4y ago
I recognize the advantage of tags, but everything else seems superfluous for a personal configuration. For beginners it just one more thing that can go wrong. I have read dozens of supposedly literate configurations on the web, and most of them are just header, begin_src, code, end_src, repeat. There are rare exceptions, but these cannot be generated automatically.
- BeetleB 4y ago
  > but everything else seems superfluous for a personal configuration. I've not used outline minor mode, but reading up on it, it seems it's merely for presentation vs editing. As an example, can I move a heading and its subtree to another part of the document? Doing so makes managing configs much easier. > I have read dozens of supposedly literate configurations on the web, and most of them are just header, begin_src, code, end_src, repeat. Most code I've read is crap. That doesn't mean one can't write code well. My own literate configuration is probably 80+% as you describe, but it's the remaining 10-20% where I do write some prose, with links, etc that make it worthwhile. I agree that it is yet another level of complexity for beginners. My own personal experience, though, was it would be much harder to debug plain init.el files than the org ones. In any case, I have no objection to using outline-minor-mode instead. I just think that many users are going to learn org mode sooner or later, and it's less cognitive load to just jump into org mode. I'm pretty sure most people who put their config in outline mode will eventually migrate it to org anyway :-) And I don't see any actual advantage to outline minor mode in general.