Comment by abeppu
3 years ago
Every so often I get into using org mode for a while, and the first day or so is always great. But, as with every similar tool in the space, I quickly find cases where the different features don't compose or interact well.
For example,
- org mode will fill out/align an ascii table if you start it and tab. When you change a cell, just tab, and everything aligns into a well-formed table again. Great!
- org mode will let you type latex and then `C-c C-x C-l` to render those latex snippets in text. Lovely!
- but the table logic is unaware of whether $latex-snippets$ have been rendered or not, so you can't see an aligned table whose cells contain latex snippets
Yes, one could do the whole table in latex, but this is more verbose and more fragile if one is incrementally building out the table as one takes notes, and occasionally previewing to confirm it's not broken.
Roughly, I think this illustrates a key tension where
- if everything is pure text, then improving tools is 'easy'
- but people don't actually want pure text for all uses; for some domains, dealing only with text requires some mental energy which can detract from the actual task of interest
Absolutely agree, however the alternatives are lacking. What you get with org (and other plain text formats) is that conversion is easy. I typically do 80% of the my authoring in org, and then finalize the last 20% elsewhere.
Is it perfect? No. But pragmatic.
You could always try and fix it so the table logic is aware of the latex snippet renderings.
I recently messed around with org-drill, found it wasn't really behaving like I wanted it to, decided to change it myself, and then was pleasantly surprised to find that changing its basic functionality was way easier than I expected (and I've barely started learning lisp/elisp.
Don't use org mode. As I said in another comment in this thread, the whole idea is just egregious yak shaving.
Does org mode have semantic understanding of keywords and a language AI to record my tasks for me? Then it's doomed. Does it sync in the cloud and have world class security (only storing decryption keys at rest in specialized hardware, locally on a TPM like device)? Then it's doomed. Does it have beautiful graphical interfaces for tablet, phone, and PC? Then it's doomed. Does it require you to learn how to use an antiquated text editor that only a small niche of non-programmers are using? Then it's doomed.
You can use org mode even if it is doomed to be irrelevant to normal people. It will continue to work. But it's not magic, please STOP TELLING ME IT'S MAGIC. It's not better than what's out there. There's companies sinking tons of money into todo apps and note taking apps that are integrating modern technologies that make any advantage of org mode complete obsolete in the world of advanced GUIs and language models.
> But it's not magic, please STOP TELLING ME IT'S MAGIC. It's not better than what's out there.
While Bear has some cool features, so does Org mode. I personally like that I can author blog posts in it, put in some code in SageMath within my org document, and whenever I export the org file for publishing, it will execute that code.
I like that I can make a note and simultaneously link to an email I have, link to some code in a .cpp file, and link to a Jira ID.
I like that I can log how many minutes I spent on a writing project, and have it automatically enter that data into Beeminder.[1]
And so much more that I'm sure Bear doesn't do.
[1] https://www.beeminder.com/
Again, you are living in the past.
- I can share a note with my wife and kids and they can live edit together.
- I can encrypt my notes and share them across the cloud.
- I can send my notes in an email, I can embed photos, videos, emails, messages in my notes.
- I can send my notes directly to my reminders and attach them to a reminder.
- I can can documents and sketches directly from my notes.
- My notes automatically look for keywords to turn into dates and reminders.
- My notes can add tags and have automatic backups and recovery.
You can also put code blocks within a note, export it, and then run it through a code executor, which is way safer than having some sort of editor automation that will slurp up a random note and hack your computer and steal all your credit card info.
8 replies →
You don’t really understand the users of such software as vim, neovim, emacs etc. After 20+ years of professional experience, the best tools for me and gor my productivity are tools such as the above, and org mode belongs to that list. I’m not here to tell you that you should use such tools or that you should believe in them, but I’m here to tell you that you are nowhere near to being right with the post above, and I’m not sure you’re that open to accept any other opinions. Might want to reflect on that.
FWIW, I haven't found a better outliner for projects than orgmode and have look for alternatives because of the reasons you mention.