Item — HN Reader

> it is adequate for a wide variety of tasks

Is it though? Like for example, I often deal with Org-mode documents of several thousand lines of text and I honestly don't know any piece of software that can acceptably handle multi-thousand lines of markdown.

Emacs/Org-mode has tons of different ways to navigate and search through these large bodies - the outline nature of the structure is perfect for that - there's narrowing, collapsing/expanding, sparse-tree search, flexible sorting, indirect buffers, imenu, overlays and text properties that can render the text conditionally, etc.

I read HN and Reddit threads in Org-mode format¹; I browse my Jira board and tickets in Org-mode², I have Wiktionary lookup³ and Thesaurus⁴ - all in Org-mode.

¹ https://youtu.be/ud3Gmxg5UZg

² https://github.com/agzam/go-jira.el

³ https://github.com/agzam/wiktionary-bro.el

⁴ https://github.com/agzam/mw-thesaurus.el

Comparing Org-mode and Markdown and saying "Markdown is widely used [and thus it's better]" is wildly immature - popularity doesn't determine fitness for purpose - PHP is more widely used than Rust or Zig, but that doesn't make it "better" for systems programming.

I can agree, Markdown is adequate for relatively small documents like README files, but it's nowhere close to even try to compete with Org-mode in so many different aspects far beyond just the markdown format structure.

1 comments

That’s awesome. Clearly, you are an Org format rockstar.

But be that as it may, if Markdown is inadequate for a variety of tasks, why do people use it for a variety of tasks? Your rebuttal is just “Here’s a task or two that I do that I think Org format is better for.” Fine. I don’t have an opinion about your tasks. I believe you that Org is better for those for you. But neither do those cases rebut the fact that MANY MORE people use Markdown quite successfully on a daily basis than Org for a wide variety of tasks (blogging, documentation, personal information management, etc.). Can Org also do those things? Yes, surely. Can Org do more than those things? Surely. But so can Markdown. So, if you want to say “Org format is better for ME and I can do more with it because it’s more feature full,” then I’d reply, “I’m sure you’re right.” But if you’re saying “Org is better for everyone,” well, then, the data just doesn’t support that.

And for the record I did not say that “Markdown is better.” You are putting words in my mouth. I said it was adequate for a wide variety of tasks. It works. It is sufficient. My proof for that is that it’s widely used for a variety of tasks. That’s it. Q.E.D.

> Can Org do more than those things? Surely. But so can Markdown.

It just cannot, because THAT'S THE POINT - it is by design. You guys with little or no exposure to Org-mode keep arguing that Markdown somehow can be replacement or be a "better" version of Org-mode. Well, IT CANNOT. Period!

That is because they have different design goals, different applications and different use-cases. I would love to use Markdown if it was clearly sufficient for the things I do - well, it is not! Do I then curse and abandon Markdown? No, of course - I would not. It still useful for certain tasks. Just because it's used for a variety of tasks, it doesn't mean it can replace Org-mode anytime soon. Just like MS Word format can't and never would replace LaTeX or PDF.