Re: Org mode and Emacs

[Ihor Radchenko]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

>   > The .org falls in the category of lightweight markup formats and I
>   > believe it should stick close to this definition.
>
> If people keep this unchanged, Org mode will remain useful for the
> tasks it can do today.  But it won't be able to do the job for which
> we now use Texinfo.
> There are many different Texinfo markup constructs, so to do the job
> of Texinfo, Org mode would need to be able to distinguish them all.
>
> So the basic question is: to extend Org mode to do that job, or not?

I don't think that we need to compromise here. We can keep Org
lightweight yet allowing arbitrary markup.

We already have arbitrary environment markup (special blocks):

#+begin_<block type>
...
#+end_<block type>

like

#+begin_center
#+begin_abstract
#+begin_myweirdlatexenvironment
etc

These are all valid Org markups, but only a small subset of them has
special handling by Org. Other free-form special blocks are simply
ignored (or handled generically), for example, on export, unless the
specific export backend implements special handling for a given block
type.

Supporting TeXinfo-specific inline markup can be done using the same
approach, without complicating core Org markup specifications.

-- 
Ihor Radchenko // yantar92,
Org mode contributor,
Learn more about Org mode at <https://orgmode.org/>.
Support Org development at <https://liberapay.com/org-mode>,
or support my work at <https://liberapay.com/yantar92>