> JSON is basically XML, which is what Java pushed so hard for for data exchange instead of really gross binary serialization formats.

JSON over XML is more of a "better is better" case, though.

Nope; worse is better is about simplicity versus correctness tradeoffs. I've read the P. Gabriel essay enough times that I can rely on my memory of it.

Like whether to hide interrupted system calls, or punt the responsibility for restarting them to the application. (That "PC loser-ing problem" example used in the essay).

Between C++ and Java, it is hard call, but I would say that the Java ecosystem values correctness more than C++.

I don't mean valuing the correctness of a delivered application, but valuing the contribution of the language stack to that goal.

Java manages memory, and defines the order of evaluation of operands in an expression. Need we go on? Java also has a security story for loading compiled code. There is no sandbox model of any kind in C++.

When you say "better Emacs support," you're kind of understating things: Org Mode was -- and to a large degree, still is -- tied intimately to Emacs. It was only available in Emacs for years, and if you didn't use Emacs, you probably didn't hear about it for years.

As someone who now uses both, I think the syntax between the two is really kind of a wash. I know Org Mode folks who insist that its syntax for links is more intuitive than Markdown's, for instance, whereas I used to insist that Markdown's was. Now I think neither is really intuitive -- the one that feels more natural to you is, very likely, the first one you learned and got comfortable with. Beyond that, most of the differences in syntax are kind of academic. (I would genuinely argue that Markdown's block quote formatting, which is the way that plain text email tended to quote messages, is more intuitive, at least to anyone who remembers writing email in plain text.) Org Mode partisans also correctly point out that you never have to worry about differences in syntax parsing the way you technically do with different flavors of Markdown, but I'd argue that's because there's effectively only one Org Mode parser out there, e.g., Org Mode in Emacs. There is no formal syntax specification for Org Mode any more than there is for Markdown, and if Org Mode had become as popular and had as many different implementations in as many different programming languages, it would absolutely have the same issue. (In fact, the few non-Emacs Org Mode parsers that I've seen are, to a one, at significant variance with Original Flavor Org Mode once you get past the basics.)

Org Mode's real strength isn't the syntax, it's everything else. I don't use it for GTD, either, but I use it as a task manager and an agenda system for work, and as a personal journal and fiction outliner. None of the power it gets for any of those things comes from using asterisks instead of hash marks for headlines, or slashes instead of underlines for italics. :)

Same team! Also an orgmode user who uses it for all things longform... A decade+ and counting. Only recently do I see need to start adopting TODOs because work and life tasks are threatening to go beyond the capacity of my normie calendar and paper lists coping mechanisms.

Orgmode text is fairly well supported now, across a plethora of non-Emacs apps and editors. I've enumerated several in my post [0].

Quoting oneself...

> But seriously, Emacs winkwink, amirite?

> Utility is contextual, remember? > > So here are ways to use org-mode without Emacs, for useful-to-you purposes, without even caring it is orgmode text underneath. > > Mobile, Web, and Desktop apps:

     mobile: Orgro, a mobile Org Mode file viewer for iOS and Android
     mobile: Plain Org, org text view and editor for iOS
     mobile: Orgzly, org text viewer and editor for Android (I use this on my phone, and sync notes to my PC with Dropbox).
     mobile: beorg for iOS (tasks, projects, notes)
     mobile: flathabits, inspired by Atomic Habits, with all your data stored in org files
     web+desktop: logseq, a privacy-first, open-source knowledge base
     web: organise, web-based org text editor and viewer
     web: braintool.org, a Chrome plugin "to easily capture and categorize all the information and knowledge you want to keep track of, right at the point you discover it or create it"

     Publish, Import, Export, Parse
     More community-enumerated tools for the same
     Even Github, Gitlab etc. support org markup these days!
 

[0] Why and How I use "Org Mode" for my writing and more

discussed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43157672

> the portability is very poor. I need most of my notes to be at least readable on my mobile devices.

Why didn't you set up an automatic recurring export of your Org files to HTML files that are uploaded somewhere? That's what I did.

I would certainly not consider package management to be a good part of JavaScript (or Rust, for that matter).

They don't though. Newline in the input doesn't create a newline in the output.

Let me explain what I meant with opinionated:

Markdown decided for the users what the needed formatting options are, instead of giving them a bunch of tools that they could then combine in many different ways. The latter would be unopinionated as it doesn't force the opinions of the devs onto the users.

For example, why doesn't markdown have columns? Why do tables have to have headers? Etc. The reason is someone decided to do it that way on purpose.

I know. And this was a good idea.

I did, and Word version 2 was an excellent product. WordBasic was incredible. There was even a graphical dialog-builder, so you could invoke dialogs from your macros. I wrote a macro that parsed and re-wrote SQL queries for a Big-6 consulting firm, saving them man-weeks if not months.

Word today is a ghastly, incompetent shitshow.

I used *roff back then. Now I have to put it into confluence. What a downgrade.

What are you talking about? Word is the standard for docs in many large engineering companies.

It’s irrelevant what it is based on. Those are the words of James Gosling.

> It's strictly worse than its original too.

Tell me more of those exiting stories. I’d like to hear them.