4 ms·

Sure. And driving on the left is one of the most reasonable sides of the road to drive on, but in a country where everyone drives on the right, it’s good to ac

Sure. And driving on the left is one of the most reasonable sides of the road to drive on, but in a country where everyone drives on the right, it’s good to accept that, though driving on the left offers just as many advantages, nonetheless you shouldn’t insist on continuing to do so. Markdown is also one of the most reasonable markup languages to use for text, and it has won sufficient share that it should be your default choice for lightweight markup, no matter how reasonable org-mode is.

skeledrew 9mo ago
Markdown can be trivially embedded in org-mode, so no need to even miss out on that which "won sufficient share": * Org with md block #+begin_src markdown ..... #+end_src Markdown may be a winner, but preferring it when org-mode exists is like tying both arms behind my back and trying to do serious things with my feet.
- jameshart 9mo ago
  So like, ```org-mode * this is org ``` ?
  - asyncze 9mo ago
    [dead]
  - skeledrew 9mo ago
    Yep. I wouldn't like to see the result of embedding any org of reasonable complexity in md though, while I've embedded pretty complex md in org. And performed various operations on the whole thing, but now we're going from syntax to (Emacs) features.
- drob518 9mo ago
  I’m not sure I see the benefit in that.
  - skeledrew 9mo ago
    Org is essentially the parent of _all_ other plaintext formats, and is able to treat them specifically at the native level. So for example there's a single command to run a code block, but the code runner is correctly resolved. And multiple blocks in different languages can communicate with each other. Entire projects can be placed in a single org files and still operate as though they're separate files. Literate programming is a breeze. Organization of anything is trivial.
    - jameshart 9mo ago
      The argument being made is not ‘org-mode is a reasonable alternative to a filesystem for organizing textual files’, it is ‘org-mode is a reasonable lightweight textual markup language’. The fact you can replace entire project and documentation systems with org-mode is not an argument in favor of its lightweight text markup.
      - skeledrew 9mo ago
        Yet text markup doesn't exist in a vacuum, heavy or light. Text is marked up in the first place so it can be better processed by a computer, while keeping it reasonably readable by humans. And there are a variety of markup formats out there as some given person gets the idea that doing it X way makes it most ideal for both use cases. Org-mode is a extremely lightweight, likely more so than md, AND allows for complex levels of processing WHILE maintaining that lightweightedness. The feature variety already exist as proof, at least in Emacs.
seawsurf 9mo ago
It's a matter of taste, isn't it? It's like LaTeX vs. Typst. You create the environment that works best for you.
- jameshart 9mo ago
  For personal workflows, yes. In your own backyard, you decide what side of the road you drive on. But when building a product for other people to use - a messaging tool like slack or a commenting platform like GitHub code review…?
  - tikhonj 9mo ago
    GitHub has at least some support for org-mode rendering. Which is a good reminder that a lot of this stuff really doesn't have to be a stark either-or choice—a lot of standardization isn't inevitable or natural or necessary, but just a choice we happen to make, often for systemic reasons that aren't inherently justified (legibility/etc).
  - fipar 9mo ago
    What if you're building a product for other people like you to use? I think this is very common, like people building tools for trackers vs Ableton/Live/etc style DAWs, or those writing software only targeting the OS they use? Not every product is built with the goal of worldwide adoption. Back to the specific case being discussed, I can easily export usable markdown from org. The people I share it with have never noticed it wasn't markdown since the start, so why wouldn't I continue to use org even when interacting with people who don't? It makes my private side of the exchange better for me, and it doesn't affect the public side negatively for others.
    - jameshart 9mo ago
      There are whole countries that drive on the left
      - fipar 9mo ago
babarock 9mo ago
Are you suggesting I should pick the markup format for my private files according to the perceived popularity of another format? I'm not sure what's your point. Are you telling people who use org-mode that they shouldn't?
- jameshart 9mo ago
  No? I’m pushing back against advocacy for broader adoption of org mode beyond personal file markup though, which is what I feel like this piece is arguing. > note that this is not about Emacs at all. This is about Org mode syntax and its advantages even when used outside of Emacs.
- crazygringo 9mo ago
  If you think you'll ever want to use third-party tools to process that markup, or if some of your private files will transform into public files at some point, then yes, considering popularity makes a lot of sense. If they're just text files you edit raw that will never interact with anything else but your text editor, then of course popularity doesn't matter at all. But in my experience, my use cases tend to expand over time. The article even talks about org mode's interoperability, mainly about the fact that pandoc supports it. And then bizarrely ignores the fact that it has much less ecosystem support than Markdown. So this is very much a subject the article itself brings up, and something that therefore also deserves to be critiqued.
  - adityaathalye 9mo ago
    OP here. I stuck with orgmode all these years /because/ of the interoperability. If I'm writing in Org, I can tangle / detangle between other plaintext sources, including source code. As well as export to collaborate. The proposition is "yes, and", not "either / or". It's /fine/ to switch to the popular "team" standard and stay there when needed. Several of my workplace documents, including wiki entries start off as local org-mode drafts. Once I'm okay to share, I export to markdown or draft wiki page and solicit comments. After that, if the document is for shared maintenance, I let my org-text alone, and switch to the "team" format. This is perfectly fine. That and the many kinds of markdown. I've been bitten enough by having to look up yet another poorly maintained document on how to markdown for /this/ particular app or website or utility, that I'd rather pandoc translate between my (sane, well documented, fully extensible) org text and whatever I need to share with others, than learn edge cases of various markdowns.
wibbily 9mo ago
Markdown (subjectively) looks better than Org when it’s plaintext - postfix headers and dashed lists are annoying to parse but they distinguish sections visually. Org by comparison feels like a sea of asterisks. (I am tickled by the /italic/ syntax though…)
- drob518 9mo ago
  I don’t like using “-“ for bullets and “*” for headings. I do love underlines for underlined text, slash for italics, and asterisks for bold. Other than that, po-tay-to, po-tah-to. Let’s all just pick one and use it consistently. I do agree with the argument that says “Markdown” is meaningless and you’re always forced to ask “What do you mean by that? Which flavor, exactly?” But that happens with anything “lightweight” as it is inevitably extended to deal with more complex demands and becomes more heavyweight in the process.
jrm4 9mo ago
This is advice that I would have rolled with pre-Generative AI. Today, I'm not so sure. I'm actually way used to zim-wiki syntax because that's what I started off with; and already "moving it around" is becoming orders of magnitude easier given the ability to vibe-code tons of little scripts that make it work better with everything else -- and while this might seem a bit counter to the point -- I think one can reasonably rely on the idea of "market share isn't that important anymore compared to 'you, personally, should use the thing that works the best for you because translation will get orders of magnitude easier.'"
- bitwize 9mo ago
  > This is advice that I would have rolled with pre-Generative AI. /me laughs in pandoc
bitwize 9mo ago
As long as we're telling people they should conform to what everyone else uses, why aren't you using Microsoft Word format instead?
- jameshart 9mo ago
  We are talking about choosing a lightweight text markup language. Not choosing a file format for rich text files.
sorrythanks 9mo ago
this is so true. i wrote a document in org and i'm still in the hospital after crashing into someone's markdown file
noahjk 9mo ago
I'm surprised nobody else brought it up - what are the pros of left-hand driving? Is it about where the controls are in relation to handedness? Some sort of safety benefit? Better visibility in certain scenarios? And are postal carriers in America who drive LLVs getting the _best_ or the _worst_ of both worlds? (I like to think about these sorts of things!)
- vishnuharidas 9mo ago
  I've driven both. Drove LHD for more than a decade in India. Now driving in RHD country for 2y now. Personally, I enjoy RHD more because I am right-handed and I get to do things easily with my RH. Otherwise, I realized that safety benefits comes from the driving discipline and not driving on a particular side of the road. Driving on Aus/Japan is way safer than India, despite all of them being LHD.
  - al_borland 9mo ago
    How does RHD make it easier to do things with your right hand? I’m right-handed in a LHD country, and this means I used my right hand for almost everything. The gear selector, radio, climate controls, GPS… all done with my right hand. My left hand controls the turn signal, that’s about it. I think I’d have a very hard time with a RHD car where I need to be precise with buttons and touch screens using my left hand.
    - vishnuharidas 9mo ago
      I mistakenly mixed up the abbreviations - it is "Right Hand Traffic"/RHT (which is "Left Hand Driving"/LHD). Like you said, I enjoy LHD more where I can use my right hand for everything like radio/AC/GPS etc. and most of them work with muscle memory without even taking eyes off the road. Doing the same with my left hand while driving in India (LHT/RHD) is very tough.
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
Andrex 9mo ago
And here I am still carrying the torch for BBCode-alikes...
thayne 9mo ago
Markdown is worse than other formats in many ways. It has several ambiguities, there are significant variations between implementations, fairly basic features like tables, footnotes, strikethrough, etc. are "extensions" that aren't widely supported. The only real advantage of markdown is that it is has because more ubiquitous/popular than others, possibly in part because it is relatively easy to implement, as long as you don't care that much about exact compatibility with other implementations.
KarlVoit 9mo ago
I would ask you to read the article before writing a comment like that. The whole point of the article is that there is no Markdown. At least not a single instance from it. So when you're referring to Markdown, you're actually referring to a few dozens of slightly different markup languages which are hard to identify and except for a few, very tedious to convert. In my opinion, this is far from being "reasonable". Orgdown is explicitly mentioned only as one LML that doesn't come with the listed downsides of Markdown. So if you think that my article tries to convince you to use orgdown instead, you've missed the part where I say that there are many good alternatives of Markdown that do perform better when it comes to real world processes. I just tried to use orgdown as one example among many to state my point by showing an alternative. If you think that orgdown is the only one, you did not read the article carefully enough. YMMV
iLemming 9mo ago
> in a country where everyone drives on the right What if I told you that your analogy breaks completely if you actually consider what Org-mode is. Think of Markdown as a noun (a thing) and Org-mode as a verb (a system that does things). It's like comparing HTML and React components - it's not about "preferable side of the road to drive", we're talking about a complete different mode of transportation - i.e., in a nation where there's infrastructure and roads for cyclists - the rules change from "drive on one side and obey traffic signs..." to be something different. Similar, yet different. That's what everyone's missing when they try to compare Markdown and Org-mode, while looking at it only through the angle of the markup structure. Markdown is a markup - pure structure, no logic, no state, no content with behavior, no executable source blocks, no embedded logic - and that's the point. Arguing which one should be "the default choice", is like saying - "just always drive a car, cars are more popular..." - an argument that has no sense whatsoever. If people find Org-mode useful (because it is), well, there's really not much you can do about it, right? Just like you can't tell people to prefer a bike, car, moto or a boat - each has pros and cons and suits different scenarios.

skeledrew 9mo ago

Markdown can be trivially embedded in org-mode, so no need to even miss out on that which "won sufficient share": * Org with md block #+begin_src markdown ..... #+end_src Markdown may be a winner, but preferring it when org-mode exists is like tying both arms behind my back and trying to do serious things with my feet.

jameshart 9mo ago
So like, ```org-mode * this is org ``` ?
- asyncze 9mo ago
  [dead]
- skeledrew 9mo ago
  Yep. I wouldn't like to see the result of embedding any org of reasonable complexity in md though, while I've embedded pretty complex md in org. And performed various operations on the whole thing, but now we're going from syntax to (Emacs) features.
drob518 9mo ago
I’m not sure I see the benefit in that.
- skeledrew 9mo ago
  Org is essentially the parent of _all_ other plaintext formats, and is able to treat them specifically at the native level. So for example there's a single command to run a code block, but the code runner is correctly resolved. And multiple blocks in different languages can communicate with each other. Entire projects can be placed in a single org files and still operate as though they're separate files. Literate programming is a breeze. Organization of anything is trivial.
  - jameshart 9mo ago
    The argument being made is not ‘org-mode is a reasonable alternative to a filesystem for organizing textual files’, it is ‘org-mode is a reasonable lightweight textual markup language’. The fact you can replace entire project and documentation systems with org-mode is not an argument in favor of its lightweight text markup.
    - skeledrew 9mo ago
      Yet text markup doesn't exist in a vacuum, heavy or light. Text is marked up in the first place so it can be better processed by a computer, while keeping it reasonably readable by humans. And there are a variety of markup formats out there as some given person gets the idea that doing it X way makes it most ideal for both use cases. Org-mode is a extremely lightweight, likely more so than md, AND allows for complex levels of processing WHILE maintaining that lightweightedness. The feature variety already exist as proof, at least in Emacs.

seawsurf 9mo ago

It's a matter of taste, isn't it? It's like LaTeX vs. Typst. You create the environment that works best for you.

jameshart 9mo ago
For personal workflows, yes. In your own backyard, you decide what side of the road you drive on. But when building a product for other people to use - a messaging tool like slack or a commenting platform like GitHub code review…?
- tikhonj 9mo ago
  GitHub has at least some support for org-mode rendering. Which is a good reminder that a lot of this stuff really doesn't have to be a stark either-or choice—a lot of standardization isn't inevitable or natural or necessary, but just a choice we happen to make, often for systemic reasons that aren't inherently justified (legibility/etc).
- fipar 9mo ago
  What if you're building a product for other people like you to use? I think this is very common, like people building tools for trackers vs Ableton/Live/etc style DAWs, or those writing software only targeting the OS they use? Not every product is built with the goal of worldwide adoption. Back to the specific case being discussed, I can easily export usable markdown from org. The people I share it with have never noticed it wasn't markdown since the start, so why wouldn't I continue to use org even when interacting with people who don't? It makes my private side of the exchange better for me, and it doesn't affect the public side negatively for others.
  - jameshart 9mo ago
    There are whole countries that drive on the left
    - fipar 9mo ago

babarock 9mo ago

Are you suggesting I should pick the markup format for my private files according to the perceived popularity of another format? I'm not sure what's your point. Are you telling people who use org-mode that they shouldn't?

jameshart 9mo ago
No? I’m pushing back against advocacy for broader adoption of org mode beyond personal file markup though, which is what I feel like this piece is arguing. > note that this is not about Emacs at all. This is about Org mode syntax and its advantages even when used outside of Emacs.
crazygringo 9mo ago
If you think you'll ever want to use third-party tools to process that markup, or if some of your private files will transform into public files at some point, then yes, considering popularity makes a lot of sense. If they're just text files you edit raw that will never interact with anything else but your text editor, then of course popularity doesn't matter at all. But in my experience, my use cases tend to expand over time. The article even talks about org mode's interoperability, mainly about the fact that pandoc supports it. And then bizarrely ignores the fact that it has much less ecosystem support than Markdown. So this is very much a subject the article itself brings up, and something that therefore also deserves to be critiqued.
- adityaathalye 9mo ago
  OP here. I stuck with orgmode all these years /because/ of the interoperability. If I'm writing in Org, I can tangle / detangle between other plaintext sources, including source code. As well as export to collaborate. The proposition is "yes, and", not "either / or". It's /fine/ to switch to the popular "team" standard and stay there when needed. Several of my workplace documents, including wiki entries start off as local org-mode drafts. Once I'm okay to share, I export to markdown or draft wiki page and solicit comments. After that, if the document is for shared maintenance, I let my org-text alone, and switch to the "team" format. This is perfectly fine. That and the many kinds of markdown. I've been bitten enough by having to look up yet another poorly maintained document on how to markdown for /this/ particular app or website or utility, that I'd rather pandoc translate between my (sane, well documented, fully extensible) org text and whatever I need to share with others, than learn edge cases of various markdowns.

wibbily 9mo ago

Markdown (subjectively) looks better than Org when it’s plaintext - postfix headers and dashed lists are annoying to parse but they distinguish sections visually. Org by comparison feels like a sea of asterisks. (I am tickled by the /italic/ syntax though…)

drob518 9mo ago
I don’t like using “-“ for bullets and “*” for headings. I do love underlines for underlined text, slash for italics, and asterisks for bold. Other than that, po-tay-to, po-tah-to. Let’s all just pick one and use it consistently. I do agree with the argument that says “Markdown” is meaningless and you’re always forced to ask “What do you mean by that? Which flavor, exactly?” But that happens with anything “lightweight” as it is inevitably extended to deal with more complex demands and becomes more heavyweight in the process.

jrm4 9mo ago

This is advice that I would have rolled with pre-Generative AI. Today, I'm not so sure. I'm actually way used to zim-wiki syntax because that's what I started off with; and already "moving it around" is becoming orders of magnitude easier given the ability to vibe-code tons of little scripts that make it work better with everything else -- and while this might seem a bit counter to the point -- I think one can reasonably rely on the idea of "market share isn't that important anymore compared to 'you, personally, should use the thing that works the best for you because translation will get orders of magnitude easier.'"

bitwize 9mo ago
> This is advice that I would have rolled with pre-Generative AI. /me laughs in pandoc

bitwize 9mo ago

As long as we're telling people they should conform to what everyone else uses, why aren't you using Microsoft Word format instead?

jameshart 9mo ago
We are talking about choosing a lightweight text markup language. Not choosing a file format for rich text files.

sorrythanks 9mo ago

this is so true. i wrote a document in org and i'm still in the hospital after crashing into someone's markdown file

noahjk 9mo ago

I'm surprised nobody else brought it up - what are the pros of left-hand driving? Is it about where the controls are in relation to handedness? Some sort of safety benefit? Better visibility in certain scenarios? And are postal carriers in America who drive LLVs getting the _best_ or the _worst_ of both worlds? (I like to think about these sorts of things!)

vishnuharidas 9mo ago
I've driven both. Drove LHD for more than a decade in India. Now driving in RHD country for 2y now. Personally, I enjoy RHD more because I am right-handed and I get to do things easily with my RH. Otherwise, I realized that safety benefits comes from the driving discipline and not driving on a particular side of the road. Driving on Aus/Japan is way safer than India, despite all of them being LHD.
- al_borland 9mo ago
  How does RHD make it easier to do things with your right hand? I’m right-handed in a LHD country, and this means I used my right hand for almost everything. The gear selector, radio, climate controls, GPS… all done with my right hand. My left hand controls the turn signal, that’s about it. I think I’d have a very hard time with a RHD car where I need to be precise with buttons and touch screens using my left hand.
  - vishnuharidas 9mo ago
    I mistakenly mixed up the abbreviations - it is "Right Hand Traffic"/RHT (which is "Left Hand Driving"/LHD). Like you said, I enjoy LHD more where I can use my right hand for everything like radio/AC/GPS etc. and most of them work with muscle memory without even taking eyes off the road. Doing the same with my left hand while driving in India (LHT/RHD) is very tough.
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]

Andrex 9mo ago

And here I am still carrying the torch for BBCode-alikes...

thayne 9mo ago

Markdown is worse than other formats in many ways. It has several ambiguities, there are significant variations between implementations, fairly basic features like tables, footnotes, strikethrough, etc. are "extensions" that aren't widely supported. The only real advantage of markdown is that it is has because more ubiquitous/popular than others, possibly in part because it is relatively easy to implement, as long as you don't care that much about exact compatibility with other implementations.

KarlVoit 9mo ago

I would ask you to read the article before writing a comment like that. The whole point of the article is that there is no Markdown. At least not a single instance from it. So when you're referring to Markdown, you're actually referring to a few dozens of slightly different markup languages which are hard to identify and except for a few, very tedious to convert. In my opinion, this is far from being "reasonable". Orgdown is explicitly mentioned only as one LML that doesn't come with the listed downsides of Markdown. So if you think that my article tries to convince you to use orgdown instead, you've missed the part where I say that there are many good alternatives of Markdown that do perform better when it comes to real world processes. I just tried to use orgdown as one example among many to state my point by showing an alternative. If you think that orgdown is the only one, you did not read the article carefully enough. YMMV

iLemming 9mo ago

> in a country where everyone drives on the right What if I told you that your analogy breaks completely if you actually consider what Org-mode is. Think of Markdown as a noun (a thing) and Org-mode as a verb (a system that does things). It's like comparing HTML and React components - it's not about "preferable side of the road to drive", we're talking about a complete different mode of transportation - i.e., in a nation where there's infrastructure and roads for cyclists - the rules change from "drive on one side and obey traffic signs..." to be something different. Similar, yet different. That's what everyone's missing when they try to compare Markdown and Org-mode, while looking at it only through the angle of the markup structure. Markdown is a markup - pure structure, no logic, no state, no content with behavior, no executable source blocks, no embedded logic - and that's the point. Arguing which one should be "the default choice", is like saying - "just always drive a car, cars are more popular..." - an argument that has no sense whatsoever. If people find Org-mode useful (because it is), well, there's really not much you can do about it, right? Just like you can't tell people to prefer a bike, car, moto or a boat - each has pros and cons and suits different scenarios.