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by nextos 2313 days ago
I use a small subset of Org Mode myself. But I think people focus too much on tools vs method. Plain text plus ripgrep can work great. Lühmann used pen and paper, and he built some hugely successful Zettelkastens. Many users at Zettelkasten.de write super simple notes in Markdown.

Actually, I'd never move away from plain text or a plain text format like Org, Markdown or similar as it is really future proof. Will Roam or Evernote be around and well maintained in 20 years? Probably not. I'd recommend you to use your favorite text editor plus Markdown. If your favorite text editor is Emacs, then consider Org.
3 comments
bachmeier 2313 days ago
I think people focus too much on tools vs method

I've been guilty of this too. A note is a way to get something out of your head. I always return to plain text files on my computer because that's the fastest/least resistance and there just aren't any additional benefits for me to using other approaches. Linux command line tools are a simple yet effective way to work with text.

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slightwinder 2313 days ago
> Lühmann used pen and paper

Luhmann.

And he collected and refinend his knowledgebase for nearly 40 decades, because this was actually his job and he had nothing better at hand. Most people today use knoweldebases just a tool on the side and they have computers now. Naturally they strive for faster workload and higher quality. Something you can't get with pen&paper.

> Will Roam or Evernote be around and well maintained in 20 years?

Probably not, maybe they are. But they are not good competition there. Evernote is mostly tooling and servers, just a bit interface and mostly just fancy richtext. The advantage over markdown is quite thin these days. Roam might be a bit better, bit I think it's just a fancy wiki with autolinking, so not really good either.

The actual competition are apps like notion and airtable and Office Suits. Interfaces and tooling which goes above and beyond simple test with fancy colors. Markdown is not there, probably never will be. Orgmode to some parts goes there, but has other problems.

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jolmg 2313 days ago
> I'd recommend you to use your favorite text editor plus Markdown. If your favorite text editor is Emacs, then consider Org.

My favorite editor is Vim, but a big part of why I learned to use Emacs was to try org-mode. Now, org-mode is pretty much the only thing I use Emacs for (email too, but not as often).

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