Re: Org-syntax: Intra-word markup

[Tim Cross]

Tom Gillespie <tgbugs@gmail.com> writes:

> I don't mean to be a wet blanket, but the edge cases for
> the current markup syntax are already hard enough to
> implement correctly, to the point where different parts of
> Org mode are inconsistent. Intra-word markup isn't viable
> because there simply isn't any sane way to parse something
> like *hello world*/hrm/oh no*. The other issue is that this will
> degrade parsing performance because almost every
> character could precede the start of a markup section.
>
> I recommend anyone suggesting solutions try to implement
> something that can parse the markup unambiguously with
> lots of nasty test cases. You will likely find that it is impossible
> to consistently tokenize markup, and that you have to hand
> write a whole bunch of heuristics, making Org syntax even
> harder to implement correctly.
>
> Any solution that suggests extending how =/*~+_  can be
> used gets a hard no from me. I could see teaching other
> exporters how to interpret \emph{hello}world, but trying for
> to have any sane behavior for something like
> why *hello*world oh no a wild askterisk*
> is not worth it.
>

+infinity!

Please, please can we stop trying to satisfy every edge case or extend
the markup to satisfy every possible scenario.

Org's big strength is in its simplicity. This comes at a price -
limitations in what can be done. If those limitations are unacceptable,
then use a richer markup format like Latex, XML, HTML etc.

The point about back end exporter support is very relevant. The 'richer'
the markup, the harder it is to get a consistent mapping for back end
exporters. things quickly become more complex and difficult to maintain.

In 18 years, I've seen requests for inner word markup less than 4 times.
this is not a feature we should even be considering adding to the markup
syntax. 

Org provides a light weight markup, not a fully flexible rich markup
designed to meet any need. It makes the easy stuff simple.