| ▲ | d-us-vb a day ago | ||||||||||||||||
I think about this often as an org mode user who uses it exclusively for journaling with none of the GTD features. Org mode was released before markdown by over a year, but never saw the uptake like markdown did, despite being a more featureful syntax. I think that's because org mode was originally a GTD framework for emacs, and the syntax of org files was incidental to doing GTD in plaintext. It didn't get popularized as an alternative to other markup languages until long after markdown became popular. I don't really know. I wasn't around back then to watch it unfold. But I still much prefer org mode due to better emacs support and (IMO) more intuitive syntax for things. | |||||||||||||||||
| ▲ | chipotle_coyote a day ago | parent | next [-] | ||||||||||||||||
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. :) | |||||||||||||||||
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| ▲ | adityaathalye 21 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | ||||||||||||||||
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: [0] Why and How I use "Org Mode" for my writing and more | |||||||||||||||||