- the author essentially discovered a limited version of org-capture templates, being limited by the platform itself;
- what happen when, not if, Obsidian development stop?
The above are not critics but suggestions by someone who have tried many notes solutions having felt the power of taking notes, and have finally choosing Emacs because notes tend to be personal, so not really useful to share, and tend to last for a human lifetime, so they must be with a platform that likely exists even 50+ years in the future. Having notes as mere text do help but it's not enough because while you can still read your notes without the tool you normally use you are way too limited to properly operate and there is no guarantee other tools using the same markup can simply read the same note base issueless. A simple example: Zim and Dokuwiki share the same markup, as a base, but if you use some plugins many part of your notes will not work. Typically some very central parts like TODOs management. Finally there is the integration issue: Emacs is an ecosystem so I can integrate anything in my notes, a mail-search query like an "inbox note" with a link to my unread mails, some tasks to be done today, some other "code-to-be-executed-on-click links" etc. It's all easy due to a shared platform made to end-user programming. Modern software do not have anything like that. Try Zotero to integrate references in notes. No matter the tool you use to take notes outside Zotero, the integration will be damn limited. In org-mode I lost the Zotero plugin for quick import but anything is integrated, I can do anything and I have a third party integration and app "availability in 50+ years risk" less.
It's not about Emacs but about a classic Desktop paradigm, the OS as a single application, user programmable, full exposed and changeable easily at runtime vs a set of individual component semi-isolated, with very limited IPCs in the middle. The former it's hard to craft and might be fragile but is extremely powerful, the letter have to many destructive events and it's terribly limited to use.
- the author essentially discovered a limited version of org-capture templates, being limited by the platform itself;
- what happen when, not if, Obsidian development stop?
The above are not critics but suggestions by someone who have tried many notes solutions having felt the power of taking notes, and have finally choosing Emacs because notes tend to be personal, so not really useful to share, and tend to last for a human lifetime, so they must be with a platform that likely exists even 50+ years in the future. Having notes as mere text do help but it's not enough because while you can still read your notes without the tool you normally use you are way too limited to properly operate and there is no guarantee other tools using the same markup can simply read the same note base issueless. A simple example: Zim and Dokuwiki share the same markup, as a base, but if you use some plugins many part of your notes will not work. Typically some very central parts like TODOs management. Finally there is the integration issue: Emacs is an ecosystem so I can integrate anything in my notes, a mail-search query like an "inbox note" with a link to my unread mails, some tasks to be done today, some other "code-to-be-executed-on-click links" etc. It's all easy due to a shared platform made to end-user programming. Modern software do not have anything like that. Try Zotero to integrate references in notes. No matter the tool you use to take notes outside Zotero, the integration will be damn limited. In org-mode I lost the Zotero plugin for quick import but anything is integrated, I can do anything and I have a third party integration and app "availability in 50+ years risk" less.
It's not about Emacs but about a classic Desktop paradigm, the OS as a single application, user programmable, full exposed and changeable easily at runtime vs a set of individual component semi-isolated, with very limited IPCs in the middle. The former it's hard to craft and might be fragile but is extremely powerful, the letter have to many destructive events and it's terribly limited to use.