Why Org is better than ReST (& other markup) | Hacker News Reader

Why Org is better than ReST (& other markup)

punchagan.muse-amuse.in

21 pointspunchagan9 comments

What I like the most about Org syntax is that it gives you a framework to plan your tasks by using nothing but text. For example:

- [%] Task 1

+ [X] Task a

+ [ ] Task b //C-c on this task will check this an calculate the %

+ [ ] Task c

Plus, it has comments. I haven't researched enough but I cannot remember of any other syntax that has comments.

# Fix this paragraph later...

* Why I like Org syntax

When you export this to latex, post it to wordpress or with org2blog, etc... the comments won't be shown. Very useful.

ReST does support comments.

Not bad. That's how I keep my todo lists, after having quit Basecamp:

  IDEAS
    One Idea
    And another idea
  
  TODO TODAY
    A task

  ARCHIVE
    Old tasks just pasted here

For those unfamiliar: these are awesome, but pretty basic, features of Org. In addition to a plain-text syntax for outlining and making lists (for tasks or otherwise), Org syntax offers:

- tags

- properties (key/value pairs that can affect things like export behavior, but also have their own API)

- dates, timestamps, ranges of these, and repeating dates/timestamps, as well as more complicated complicated scheduling via integration with Emacs diary (e.g., a class that meets every Monday from January until May)

- per-file configuration variables (e.g., configure your TODO workflow in a given file to be: TODO -> INPROGRESS -> WAITING -> DONE)

- priority of TODO items

- hyperlinks to local documents, URLs, emails, address book entries, etc.

and more. I'm just listing the syntax I use. And this is to say nothing of Org's many great features beyond its syntax, like the capture interface, the publishing framework, and the many useful exporters.

Article should be titled "I like Org better than ReST".

agreed.

I'm not so sure about the thesis of the blog post, I haven't used org very much. But ReST is so much better than the dominant wiki syntaxes in the Ruby world, it's not even funny. ReST actually had significant effort put into it's design, whereas Markdown was a quick hack Gruber designed just for himself and "thrown over the fence". Even so, it's better than the other common one, textile.

http://docutils.sourceforge.net/docs/peps/pep-0287.html

What the hell is org? As a standalone blog post this left me more confused than anything else.

This is org, or orgmode: http://orgmode.org/

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