Comment by codexb
7 months ago
The article comments on it briefly, but doesn't really answer the question -- "Why not just use Markdown?" It's already popular. There's already tons of support for it. What does org-mode give us that markdown doesn't?
7 months ago
The article comments on it briefly, but doesn't really answer the question -- "Why not just use Markdown?" It's already popular. There's already tons of support for it. What does org-mode give us that markdown doesn't?
Well, I feel my whole post is my "why org-mode" swan song :D
If I had to pick just one reason: Org-mode's much more regular --- and singular, unlike the many flavours of markdown --- syntax appeals to my sensibilities more. I linked to a post, which I agree with: https://karl-voit.at/2017/09/23/orgmode-as-markup-only/
Once you pick one of the many “extended Markdowns” (one downside of MD is that there’s no agreement on what it actually is), they’re essentially equivalent.
But they’re not easily interchangeable, so what you’re really choosing is not the syntax you want to use, but the environment and ecosystem of tools you want to live in. For example, compare org-mode in Emacs (decades of plugins, open source, TUI-oriented, very nerdy) to Obsidian (Markdown, pretty good plugin selection, closed source, GUI-based, approachable).
Because markdown is a markup, and org mode is an app (with behavior).
Can I run source code blocks within a markup document?
There is much more to org-mode than just elegant markup. Here’s a brief overview to get started: https://orgmode.org/features.html (linked the article).