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Comment by bitexploder | Hacker News Reader

Org mode in a git repo. Easy enough. Don't need a fussy rendering step. Generate a PDF or HTML from org. Regardless of how you do it -- plain text will endure and using git makes it really simple. Markdown can never "go away" and neither can org files. They are inherently readable with cat and the naked eye. If I can't legibly read it with cat / less it will eventually leave me disappointed in some way.

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I'm similar, my note-taking system is a directory full of org and markdown files, synced to dropbox.

I don't think i could ever go back to a notes-as-a-service system again.

org-mode's format sucks, is only partially supported outside of Emacs, and is on its way out. org-mode is only any good if you're using the full power of it (tasks, agenda, etc), which is buying into a system that's soon going away.

How do you mean “on its way out”? Do you just mean that people searching for new organizational software nowadays are decreasingly likely to choose it?

Yes and for a piece of software that heavily relies on its ecosystem, you want the ecosystem to be vibrant in 10 years from now.

I've been using pretty much the same features from org-mode now that I used when I first started using it at least 11 years ago (actually, probably using even fewer features now, in the beginning I would export things, but these days I rarely see the need). All my notes still work, and are still plain text, and still don't rely on any "ecosystem", just Emacs and git.

Emacs and org-mode will still be here (along with the armoured cockroaches) long after we're all gone. In fact, I have more faith in the longevity of emacs than I do of Android or iOS, or Evernote/OneNote for that matter.

well, without any extra information, the expected future lifetime of a thing is proportional (equal, actually) to its lifetime so far. therefore, yes, it's perfectly sensible to expect Emacs to last longer :)

small example: mobile client for ios is kinda bunk

It isn't the best, but it is also very simple. I like the actual hierarchy vs Markdown. I can navigate a lot of notes fast in org. Emacs packages last a long time. Emacs API is stable. I am confident it will still work in ten years.

Emacs and plain org-mode may work, but will that be how you want to edit files in the future?

It's been a decade and they still haven't figured out mobile.

I find this statement odd. "Figured out mobile" in what sense? The laptop solved the mobility issue for Emacs about 2 decades ago. If you mean "runs on Android or iOS", it's likely Emacs will still be around after one or both of those have been consigned to the scrap heap.

Not everyone wants to have to whip out their laptop every time they want to update their orgsniser. I mean I can get that before smartphones become a thing but we're supposed to be making things better and easier over time. Are you seriously trying to justify the lack of progress on that front by saying that a 20 year old technological innovation made things a little easier already? That's like claiming transport is OK with just horses even though the combustion engine exists.

That's more like claiming transport is OK with just tanks when we've got electric vehicles. Tanks are not that efficient and neither are they that fast, and probably will not be allowed in the city - but they can go literally anywhere. And to be fair the guy has a point (a had a point for years beforehand).

Unless you're that networking guy that just massively tries to organise a thousand meetings a day on the go - I believe that a laptop is a better way to use your organiser.

I've had a lecturer at the university who still used a console-based e-mail client. He knew all of the shortcuts by heart - and I am pretty sure it would probably take me a few years to casually learn how to use Outlook/Gmail/etc.. as efficiently (and even then - most of the UI-based applications tend to somehow forget that a keyboard exists at all).

You'll ask me: "but what about mobile?". Well - the guy _never_ replied to your e-mails outside his office hours; but when he did - he gave you a proper, short and an informal answer. And to be fair, he seemed to have a great personal life.

Excuse me - I did write a lot here, but had forgotten to make the primary point: I don't think that the availability of productivity tools on mobile is that crucial for someone using them professionally.

Besides, if you are a true power-user of these tools and had been years before - there's quite a high probability that the newer tools would require quite some time to mature in order to make them a fully-functional alternative.

This is to say that I still find Calendar apps on mobile quite tricky to use as opposed to a fast "point-and-drag" alternative on desktop. I would rather open up a laptop unless I don't have it.

"it's likely Emacs will still be around after one or both of those have been consigned to the scrap heap."

That may be true, but it does nothing for people who need to take notes using their phone now.

Orgzly (http://www.orgzly.com/) works well enough for me. It can sync to DropBox, so I can put all my .org files into DropBox for replication/backups and have Orgzly read & update them.

It's not full org mode for sure, but it's a solid way to read and do simple changes to my .org files on my phone.

As tools like Evernote and OneNote rose to fame, I've always wondered why do people use such sophisticated note taking apps? People don't seem to be using it for to do list? Maybe because it allows things to be searched? Can someone explain what notes they take or how do they use it?

I still end up using a sophisticated note app (AnyList) for remembering spinach. Real-enough-time syncing with my non-techie significant other's phone is pretty great, the latency is low enough that we divide and conquer at the grocery store.

When I take meeting notes, I end up using OneNote or Google Docs:

- I have a tree of `Who - What` (and the counter-bikeshedding).

- Images of block diagrams sneak in, especially if it's a planning or design meeting.

- Full text search is handy, one-note especially spoiled me by doing OCR

- I like GDocs in particular for the real-enough-time collaboration. It can help quieter people not get steamrolled in conversation, especially if you have a boisterous note-taker to speak up for them :)

I am not even a regular Emacs user (sorry, on the Vim side for now), and I think Orgzly is a great note-taking app. Actually the best one I've tried so far. It's true! :)

Can you elaborate what going away means here

"They are inherently readable with cat and the naked eye."

Emacs has been with us for well over 30 years and during that time has always had folks claim it was obsolete (no graphical UI, no OOP etc). Emacs will be around for at least another 30 years.

For taking notes you don't need todos or the agenda -- it's heirarchical, fast to search through, and pleasing to the eye (at least, to a similar level to markdown). Aside from that, the syntax is at least as expressive, if not more so because of the extensibility of the language it's written in.

Yes, buying into the todo and agenda systems effectively requires using an external integration script or using emacs all the way through, so that's not all that great. I, too, have yet to figure out how to integrate it into the usual PIM stuff like next loud calendars, etc.

Has anyone else managed to figure this bit out?

> Emacs, and is on its way out

Being active on the Emacs and Org mode mailing lists, and other forums, I can say with confidence that this is not true.

In fact, I am seeing active development in both Emacs and Org; not just bug fixes, but frequent additions of new features.

> org-mode is only any good if you're using the full power of it (tasks, agenda, etc), which is buying into

Org markup is much more powerful than Markdown. So you can be much more productive by using Org just as markup. One example is '#+INCLUDE: "foo.py" :lines-5-10'.. This is tremendously useful if you are writing notes that export to some format or blogging.. you don't need to copy-paste code snippets, Org will fetch them for you. (I have a customization built on top of that.. instead of specifying the line numbers, I can specify the start and end regexp for the lines containing my snippet). Add org-babel to this mix, and you don't even need to run the snippets, and copy the results manually; again Org does it.

I recently blogged about comparing string related functions between Python and Nim: https://scripter.co/notes/string-functions-nim-vs-python/

I cannot imagine myself writing (and maintaining) that post in Markdown!

On the next update of Nim version, I'll simply run org-babel over the whole file, see git diff to check if anything major has changed, and update the post accordingly.. no copy/pasting ever :)

> a system that's soon going away.

Again, really? What made you think that?

(I have a customization built on top of that.. instead of specifying the line numbers, I can specify the start and end regexp for the lines containing my snippet).

This is awesome. Is this available anywhere? I'd like to use it.

Sure, here it is: https://github.com/kaushalmodi/.emacs.d/blob/master/elisp/or...

Thank you! I had been meaning to write something like this for myself. It's more useful than line numbers, which typically change often.

> I recently blogged about comparing string related functions between Python and Nim: https://scripter.co/notes/string-functions-nim-vs-python/ I cannot imagine myself writing (and maintaining) that post in Markdown!

Convincing!

I am curious about the org-source you used for that article, is it public?

Yes, here's the source:

- source of that specific post in raw org [1] - site source [2]

[1]: https://gitlab.com/kaushalmodi/kaushalmodi.gitlab.io/raw/mas...

[2]: https://gitlab.com/kaushalmodi/kaushalmodi.gitlab.io

(I wish HN supported some markup :P)

Thanks! How did you edit that? As shown? I assumed it included many INCLUDEs?

That, I have edited as shown (except the snippet outputs). That was an example of using Org Babel. Note that the #+RESULT blocks in that file are all auto-generated; none hand-written.

That post does not have any #+INCLUDE because all the code snippets are trivial. I would use #+INCLUDE in posts where I have a code file, and I want to talk about only few lines from that.

I have different examples of #+INCLUDE in my examples file[1] for my Org to Markdown for Hugo exporter -- ox-hugo[2]. There I use the inbuilt INCLUDE feature where I choose to include only the specified Org sub-tree (using the sub-tree CUSTOM_ID). The above referenced post on Nim/Python is converted to Markdown for Hugo using the same exporter.

[1]: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kaushalmodi/ox-hugo/master... [2]: https://github.com/kaushalmodi/ox-hugo

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