Re: Thoughts on the standardization of Org

[TEC]

Hi all,

Following what I've read on the list I've developed thoughts on 
what the
best approach might be. My current thinking is that it may be 
possible
to have Org registered as a standard in such a way that it does 
not
constrain our development efforts.

How?

We forgo locking down the precise format and behaviour of every 
Org
element. Instead we only submit something like
https://orgmode.org/worg/dev/org-syntax.html which /just/ 
describes the
overall syntax. I don't imagine that 'locking' ourself into the 
current
syntax described in https://orgmode.org/worg/dev/org-syntax.html 
would
actually hurt development, but might be enough for a MIME type 
etc.

Then perhaps just say for description of how specific/special 
instances
of those structural elements are supposed to work see the 
reference
implementation.

Just a few thoughts from me.

All the best,
Timothy.

Asa Zeren <asaizeren@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi,
>
> Even though I am new to the org-mode community, I would like to 
> share
> some thoughts on the specification of org-mode, especially since 
> I
> have seen some recent discussion of it in relation to 
> registering org
> as a MIME type.
>
> First, I would like to repeat the importance of developing 
> standards
> for org-mode. If we want to expand the influence of org, tooling 
> must
> expand beyond Emacs. While Emacs is an amazing tool, (a) we 
> cannot
> convince the entire world to use Emacs and (b) org-mode should 
> be
> integrated into tooling unrelated to text editing, and is 
> outside of
> the Emacs-Lisp environment. Without additional org 
> implementations,
> this is impossible. If org catches on before it is standardized, 
> we
> end up in the situation of Markdown, with many competing 
> standards and
> non-standards. Hence, standardization is essential.
>
> Standardizing org is much harder than standardizing something 
> like
> Markdown, but I think by breaking it down as follows will 
> maximize the
> portability of org while not compromising on development of org.
>
> I see three areas of standardization, which I think should be
> standardized separately:
>  - Org DOM
>  - Org Syntax
>  - Org Standard Environments
>
> Before we get to that, a brief note on /how/ I think that org 
> should
> be specified. I think that org should be specified in terms of 
> an
> /environment/ that defines the properties, etc. that can be used 
> in a
> document. For instance, the org standard would say something to 
> the
> effect of "An environment may specify block bounding keywords 
> that may
> be used like #+<kwd_0>\n...#+<kwd_1>. and the environment would 
> specify
> "begin_src and end_src are a pair of block bounding keyword that
> indicates a source code block." This is for two reasons. First, 
> this
> allows for development of org tool features independent of the
> standard. Second, this separates the individual features of org 
> mode
> from the overall structure.
>
> Org DOM:
> The first thing to specify is the org DOM. (Maybe a different 
> name
> should be used to avoid confusion with the HTML DOM) This is the
> structure of an org-mode document, without the textual
> representation. Many org-related tools operate on org documents
> without needing to use the textual representation. Specifying 
> the DOM
> separately would (a) create a separation of concerns and (b) 
> allow for
> better libraries built around org mode.
>
> Org Syntax:
> This would be specifying the mapping between the DOM and the 
> textual
> representation, specified in terms of an environment.
>
> Org Standard Environments:
> This is how I would specify elements such as 
> #+begin_src..#+end_src
> would be specified, as standardized elements of the environment. 
> This
> would be structured as a number of individual standard 
> environments,
> such as "Source Blocks" or "Standard Header Properties" 
> (specifying
> #+title, #+author, etc.)
>
> I would appreciate thoughts on these ideas about how to develop 
> and
> org specification.
>
> Thanks for reading,
> Asa Zeren