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0 pointsmorgancmartin7y ago0 comments

I'm curious why you refer to it as a trap. I personally use spacemacs and am very happy with it and I also use org mode casually, though do not consider myself an expert by any means. I do think I've experienced a similar "quantum leap" in productivity through my usage of VIM commands in an emacs environment though and am thankful for it every time I see a coworker painstakingly navigating through sublime text or something similar. Definitely not a trap for me. I imagine the productivity gains heralded by fans of org mode are similar in nature, so your idea that this focus on increased automation for personal productivity should be considered a "trap" is curious to me.

I do concede that org mode and lisp in general are brought up perhaps a bit too often here at HN seeing as they're not all that new though.

0 pointsmorgancmartin7y ago0 comments

I do concede that org mode and lisp in general are brought up perhaps a bit too often here at HN seeing as they're not all that new though.

0 comments

4 comments · 1 top-level

vemv7y ago· 3 in thread

Emacs/Org aren't a trap per se, but if you find yourself using Org to blog about how you use Org for your blog, that seems a) funnily meta, and b) and indicator that you may have fallen in the 'trap' of investing far too much time in tooling, defeating the initial productivity intent.

Been there.

Ambrevar7y ago

This is a fair point, but I don't think it applies here: the article is not so much about blog publishing with Org, but rather about 1) good practices and 2) hackable systems. Hacking here does not mean "crazy setup code just to get it to work", it means that I can add or customize (optional) features to my very needs.

Those two points are, I believe, not in very widespread usage among blog writers. I believe that 2) is responsible for 1). Unflexible configurations are too widespread in my opinion and it goes very much against what a programmer / hacker could aspire for.

In the end, the time I've spent on this was very short. Compared to the previous systems I've tried, it now makes for a much smoother publishing experience for me. The ultimate point is that I can tailor it to my exact needs instead of being endlessly frustrated with a non-hackable publishing system.

vemv7y ago

Seems a more than respectable POV.

My remark wasn't particularly aimed at you, simply it followed OP's (and also my) observation that "Org mode meta-blogging" is a category by itself :)

xfer7y ago

Well, productivity isn't everything, not everyone times all their activity in daily life and decides what to optimize for.

Maybe the author has that time to invest on tooling and doesn't care about how he would save a couple of hour by pushing a button on medium. Just because you did it unconsciously doesn't make it a trap.

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