Post B2AjWWxafChBcYXxEO by mms@mastodon.bsd.cafe
(DIR) More posts by mms@mastodon.bsd.cafe
(DIR) Post #B2AgffW9usXeuCNieO by publicvoit@graz.social
2026-01-11T09:42:24Z
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My article about "#Markdown Is a Disaster: Why and What to Do Instead" from https://karl-voit.at/2025/08/17/Markdown-disaster/ was listed on the entry page of #HackerNews yesterday.It hurts me to read through the comments. One part of the people who commented obviously didn't read the article they're commenting on.And another part of the commenters does mix up #Orgmode, the Elisp implementation within #Emacs, with orgdown, the lightweight syntax which is actually the topic of this article. This part of the discussion is totally missing the whole point of my article: practical issues related to Markdown; choosing any other #LML which doesn't come with those downsides. #Orgdown was just one example of many which I wanted to mention because it is one of the least known alternatives outside the Emacs bubble. š¤·
(DIR) Post #B2AicY7r8vV31Fedpw by sysedit@mastodon.social
2026-01-11T10:04:15Z
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@publicvoit Will be a while until I've read through the article. I've been using Org-Mode for about 2 decades but the last few years I've been using Markdown a lot. Very recently I stopped writing technical documentation in Markdown and I am using Texinfo instead. All the while I am still using Latex for profesional correspondence. The longer I am using these tools the more I am convinced that I need a different tool for my different use cases.
(DIR) Post #B2AjWWxafChBcYXxEO by mms@mastodon.bsd.cafe
2026-01-11T10:14:21Z
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@publicvoit orange site? Read?
(DIR) Post #B2Ajp9Xzw5VMVeSKC8 by publicvoit@graz.social
2026-01-11T10:17:44Z
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@sysedit In general, I totally can relate you your statement.However, there is one additional notion to it: if you're using a really(!) powerful and flexible tool, you might need less tool switches for slightly different jobs.IMO that's one of the (meta-)reasons why there are so many Windows programs out there: normal users aren't using flexible tools like #GNUtools (UNIX pipes) or #Emacs that are able to match a wide range of requirements where "normal people" are using a specific tool for one specific use-case.I see the tendency that, e.g., every app needs to have a "read later/notify me later" feature or its own spell checker and so forth. From a tech perspective, this is not very clever.If you do have your flexible #knowledgemanagement tool, you can implement all sorts of "do stuff later" functionality with it, in case your tools are flexible enough to interact with each other.Furthermore: our requirements differ more than we think: https://karl-voit.at/2021/01/18/tool-choices/#PIM #PKM
(DIR) Post #B2Al4MOGZH4Wdhie80 by tusharhero@mathstodon.xyz
2026-01-11T10:31:45Z
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@publicvoit @sysedit >GNU tools or yet another GNU tool (GNU's flagship text editor).
(DIR) Post #B2AyhKV2pWWjTPnmyG by sysedit@mastodon.social
2026-01-11T13:04:18Z
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@publicvoit š I am reading the part about URLs in Markdown and yes, I have to look up links in Markdown every time. Anything would be better than what they went with.
(DIR) Post #B2Aysokwg4IuUuiXbc by taylorhadden@mastodon.social
2026-01-11T13:06:27Z
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@publicvoit I wonāt argue with the notion that markdown is a mess. My own āmarkdownā app doesnāt do straight markdown (a mix of omissions, incompatibilities, and additions), and I have no intention of it ever hewing to a specific spec. (1/3)
(DIR) Post #B2AysubEx46ccYDsJM by taylorhadden@mastodon.social
2026-01-11T13:06:27Z
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However, I do think that the core markdown features (headers, lists, links) are _much better aesthetically_ than their equivalents in Orgdown. I was aware of org when I started toying with markdown, and I quite simply donāt like the way that org source looks. (2/3)
(DIR) Post #B2Ayt0GtrbOuDCkiRM by taylorhadden@mastodon.social
2026-01-11T13:06:28Z
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My work on @tangentnotes is going off in its own direction with syntax designed for my specific use cases. That it uses a solid slice of common markdown syntax is not a bad thing, IMO. Languages like these are essentially trivial to extend and modify. Markdown has so many variations precisely because it has so many users. (3/3)
(DIR) Post #B2B2y70AfTWcLkcRbE by publicvoit@graz.social
2026-01-11T13:52:14Z
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@taylorhadden That's totally fine if you do have lower priorities in re-using your data in other tools.After all, your argument is more about personal preference and not about technical issues I was writing about. Those tech issues vanish if you focus on one single tool. (Besides the lock-in effect, of course.)
(DIR) Post #B2B4BHa6kDA4sfGwaG by sysedit@mastodon.social
2026-01-11T14:05:48Z
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@publicvoit I really like the term "Zoo of Markdown flavours" that you are using.
(DIR) Post #B2B4IDtSr08xTDdTSC by publicvoit@graz.social
2026-01-11T14:07:05Z
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@sysedit Hehe. Yes, I, too, think that this is a valid term for the current situation.
(DIR) Post #B2B4J3v1QSHqp6lS6K by taylorhadden@mastodon.social
2026-01-11T14:07:12Z
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@publicvoit Isnāt there lock-in for Org as well? You could argue the effect is larger since the environment for org is smaller.However, youāre right; Iām fundamentally not worried about lock-in for a tool Iām building for myself š
(DIR) Post #B2B4s2eM8Qjn1WeGky by publicvoit@graz.social
2026-01-11T14:13:33Z
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@taylorhadden I think that the lock-in of orgdown is MUCH smaller because almost any tool that is able to process orgdown (pandoc being the most important, obviously) is able to digest and process orgdown properly.Whereas one of the main reasons why Markdown isn't working in my business environment is the zoo of flavors which cause all sorts of data loss you hardly realize.I can follow your rationale but I come to a different conclusion purely from my point of view from the daily work with those formats.Org = org. MD != MD.Whenever I want to migrate my 108143 headings in 2321786 total lines, I don't expect many issues.My wife - unfortunately - has started using logseq. When I migrate her MD files (because that project went south already), I really do face many, many issues with her maybe hundred files. This is a serious lock-in effect to me. I do have to analyze, which add-ons she's using, which elements they introduce, how they can be migrated, write migration scripts, ...
(DIR) Post #B2B5GjPkmzkabaaj3I by taylorhadden@mastodon.social
2026-01-11T14:18:03Z
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@publicvoit Logseq is particularly heinous, as they donāt actually support markdown _at all_ while claiming to. A header in a list is invalid in _any_ markdown syntax.Itās gauche to speak ill of competing projects, but I honestly donāt understand why Logseq is so popular. Itās slow, its editing UX is terrible, and itās incredibly unstable. The only conclusion Iāve come to is that āoutliner peopleā are approaching the app in a very different way than I do.
(DIR) Post #B2B5bx9ctqnJIfAQca by publicvoit@graz.social
2026-01-11T14:21:52Z
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@taylorhadden Maybe this might give you some insights on how people see logseq? https://karl-voit.at/2024/01/28/logseq-from-org-pov/
(DIR) Post #B2B9dXA0ulU54sMEYS by sysedit@mastodon.social
2026-01-11T15:06:56Z
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@publicvoit So Org-Mode can export to Texinfo and Man page format.So would your suggestion be to write Man pages and Texinfo in Orgdown?The single most distressing thing about it for me would be that in my repository I'd have both the org and texi file. So I'd have to manually export to that texi file and if I or somebody else make mistakes then these files will be out of sync. And one change would always trigger two changed files which is just a bit weird.
(DIR) Post #B2BAtKwKDcs3lN3PxQ by publicvoit@graz.social
2026-01-11T15:21:01Z
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@sysedit What advantage would that have? I also don't recommend to code programs from within Org-babel although it is possible.If you need a man page, don't introduce unnecessary conversion because you might want to have absolute control over the end result and not adding some risk that is related to conversion processes in general.However, when it comes to writing papers, letters, thesis, ... there are very good arguments to do that in org-mode and then export accordingly to the end format.
(DIR) Post #B2BF0kygCyEEMVwuDQ by sysedit@mastodon.social
2026-01-11T16:07:06Z
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@publicvoit Nice. Thank you.
(DIR) Post #B2BHkRXqzTAFK1JXaC by taylorhadden@mastodon.social
2026-01-11T16:37:50Z
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@publicvoit It certainly has a tremendous list of features. Plugins explode that even more, certainly.I just find the basic experience of using the program to be quite unpleasant. The most important part of a notes tool for me is to reduce friction to as-near-zero as possible. In order for that to be possible, I need to want to spend time in a program's environment.https://everything-abridged.com/friction_in_recording_thoughts_is_harmful
(DIR) Post #B2BIYBMTR0WJbni00m by sysedit@mastodon.social
2026-01-11T16:46:50Z
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@publicvoit Thank you for writing in this detail about your thoughts.You are bringing up some points about Markdown that hurt me while using it but I never knew exactly what specificely it was.
(DIR) Post #B2BJQ98Jw3KkKqowUa by sysedit@mastodon.social
2026-01-11T16:56:35Z
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@publicvoit One thing I noticed, the article is long enough that it would be worth for some people to download it as an Epub (I read longer articles on an e-reader). Not sure if that information is usefull to you, just thought I mention it.
(DIR) Post #B2BO0ecKkt7uDtWTgG by publicvoit@graz.social
2026-01-11T17:48:00Z
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@sysedit Exactly that was the feedback with my peers that drove me to think about that in the first place and then summarize my findings in the article.I also tried to tie down as much as possible to objective facts. However, there is a large part of critique that is driven by feelings, opinions and cognitive limits. One can hardly put into someone's shoes who is about to start with LMLs.
(DIR) Post #B2BO8LwM51ZCc7Yhc0 by publicvoit@graz.social
2026-01-11T17:49:25Z
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@sysedit Oh, I can copy that requirement.However, I simply use the "print to PDF" browser functionality to read it on my eBook reader.Each page of my blog comes with its Orgdown source (upper right corner) where you can download the original content and throw it to pandoc in order to get any format you want. š
(DIR) Post #B2BOGIg65oUgoSkBDU by sysedit@mastodon.social
2026-01-11T17:50:49Z
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@publicvoit I usually use a browser extension to turn it into an Epub.
(DIR) Post #B2BOVlLhmD0G4vZw4e by publicvoit@graz.social
2026-01-11T17:53:38Z
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@sysedit That's the beauty of the still open web.When Google takes over the rest of the browser engine market shares, workflows like that may be gone for good. š
(DIR) Post #B2D6lpsdHv7tuEPlrM by sysedit@mastodon.social
2026-01-12T13:44:15Z
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@publicvoit I see a future where some pages use subset of HTML, without CSS & JS with simple browsers.The bloated browsers will never go away but for my own needs there is that nieche that has many browsers that could make use of it like Links, Lynx, Eww.I am struggling at the moment to put all knowledge available to me at my fingertips. The advent of LLMs taught me that I should rely less on search engines and the bro-science that comes with it and more on books and official docs.