Why Use BrainstormWFO Instead of Org-Mode for

[Jay Dugger]

BrainStormWFO Compared to Its Competitors doesn't convince me. Emacs Org-mode looks like a very good substitute if one learns Emacs. In my case, having made that commitment, the three reasons given don't offset the drawbacks of using a single-platform, proprietary, closed-source program.

• Outline sorting is inefficient.
• Collapse and expand actions apply across all panes, making basic sorting difficult.
• Sorting hotkeys are good but there are no marks.
• Managing TODO attributes individually is an inherently inferior method of prioritization to rapid outline sorting of tasks
• Org-mode’s integrated approach doesn’t lend itself to separation between scratch zone, chronological tape, and main mindmap outline

 Inefficient outline sorting seems an unfair complaint.You can use the speedbar to avoid having collapse and expand actions apply across all windows (Emacs for "panes"). You can use this with window management (winner-mode and follow-mode) and indirect buffers to work like BrainstormWFO. Emacs has persistent bookmarks that work like BrainstormWFO's marks.

Inherently inferior task sorting might make a good reason to prefer BrainstormWFO over Org-Mode. I haven't yet studied that part of the problem. Can you explain this complaint in more detail?

That org-mode doesn't lend itself to separation makes it unsuitable for all the work of Cyborganize system, agreed. That doesn't make any recommendation for BrainstormWFO.

Finally, have I missed something?

[Joseph B]

" .You can use the speedbar to avoid having collapse and expand actions apply across all windows (Emacs for "panes"). "

I don't know how to do that?

I now use indirect buffers to display the same buffer in different expand/collapse states. So yes that page is outdated. 

However, Org is not suitable for the rapid inductive outlining that I use BrainStormWFO for. You cannot take lots of disorganized small blocks and quickly build a detailed hierarchical structure with them. That is what you see me doing in some of the videos. 

Yes, Emacs does have bookmarks, but their function is quite clunky compared to BS. Even if one used all the editing shortcuts Emacs offers, it would still be way slower and more challenging than running the same content through BS. 

Moreover, consider the finished product. Org mode outlines don't scale nearly as well as BS outlines for hierarchical proliferation. On the other hand, Org handles outlines with large blocks of text much better than BS. The two have different affordances.

I've been using both programs for a long time, and believe me I looked at integrating them into one platform, but I just don't see a way. I do think it would be possible (easy?) to write an Emacs mode that delivers BS functionality. Until then...

--
Ignore the following. It is a nonsense sentence that disables Google ads from displaying next to my emails by triggering sensitive keywords.

I enjoy the massacre of ads. This sentence will slaughter ads without a messy bloodbath.

[Jay Dugger]

Thank you for answering my post, and thank you for publicly working on Cyborganize. Some of it overlaps with my current methods, and I add more as I test it.

You can learn more about the Emacs speedbar from the documentation, and you can call it up with "M-x speedbar." Right-clicking in the speedbar frame should give you a context menu, if you use Emacs 24.

Please update the Cyborganize site with your methods for using indirect buffers.

I'll have to test your claims about BrainStormWFO. For those that prove true, I'll acknowledge you told me so. :) BrainStormWFO and Emacs have different perceived affordances, agreed. I don't know whether BrainStormWFO's specialization-derived advantages of speed and scalability outweigh its drawbacks of non-free, closed-source, and non-cross-platform, and I won't know until I test it for myself. Right now it suffers in comparison to other alternatives: Leo, Org-mode, TreeSheets, and WorkFlowy.

[Joseph B]

BSW works on Wine, if that's what you mean by cross platform.

I checked out speedbar. It's not immediately obvious how you would
duplicate the affordance, although you might be able to work some kind
of hack around. If you've got one let me know, I'm interested.

Did you watch the long video of me doing the Ramit Sethi case study?
That had some intensive BSW sorting that Emacs couldn't have done.
Towards the end. Watch that to see what I'm talking about. I'm pretty
sure you just haven't seen what I mean.

BSW has been around a long long time and as long as autosave is off
it's pretty much bug free. It crashes rarely but then so does Emacs,
surprisingly. You can backup on Dropbox premium if you're paranoid,
and I recommend that anyway for beginners. Don't want to experience
accidental branch deletion leading to mindloss.

I would love a FOSS tool that did what I wanted, but AFAIK one just
doesn't exist. BSW is the least replaceable piece of Cyborganize, but
Org-Mode and Wordpress follow right behind. Those two are open/free,
so it's not like I'm trying to steer people towards walled gardens.
For example, back in the day I was a Ultra Recall junkie and that just
didn't work out. Before that, OneNote.  And many more...

Let's see what else. I just checked out Leo and it looks interesting,
definitely, but it's the wrong kind of outliner. Almost all outliners
distinguish between titles and body text for entries, and here Leo is
no different. Lotsa interesting menus there, and I'm sure it's
powerful. Mind telling us how you're using it?

Treesheets is good but GUI oriented, again different. Workflowy is
clunky as hell, I would rather use any number of offline outliners for
better speed. It's good for a certain kind of use but not my heavy
duty needs.

And Org-Mode of course rocks, but it's nowhere near capable of
building granularly sorted dynamic hierarchies of 500+ short items
nested 10+ layers deep, much less 5,000 items 50 deep. I know because
I tried. Didn't even work for just tasks. I made too many.

One major thing Cyborganize tries to eliminate is tool-generated
anxiety. Does X go in A tool or B tool? XYZ won't all fit without
choking the tool, so which do I leave out? How will that impact my
memory, my execution stack, my future identity?

Cyborganize is designed to gracefully absorb indiscriminate barrages
of user input, without losing dynamism, speed, relevance, or
exponentially increasing maintenance costs. That's very very hard to
do. In one way or another, everyone's trying to do it.

I would argue they're all failing. At most they can succeed only with
low-output users. But since one of Cyborganize's core design
principles is that higher text output leads to better mental
performance, a system that only works for low output users is
inherently broken.

Most people don't try to fully upload their brains, or at least all
their typing output. I do, because I'm nuts. And furthermore, my daily
output ranges from 1k-10k+ words per day. When you try to do that
using these other tools, you quickly run up against hard limits.
That's the context from which I'm speaking.

So, it's a choice - watch your mind drip drab away, and HOPE that your
subconscious is handling everything perfectly in the background, or
use a system that can handle your real level of mental output. I'm
pretty sure that mental chatterbox inside everyone's head is going all
the time. Some people's just goes around in circles because it never
draws a map. And how do you draw a map? By remembering where you've
been.

(Clearly I wasn't kidding about the wordcount)

------

ah yes, here's a how-to on emacs and indirect buffers. not up on the
site yet, apparently:

http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/3198

[Jay Dugger]

Again, thanks for answering on Google Groups.

On Feb 15, 4:09 am, Joseph B <joseph.buchign...@gmail.com> wrote:
> BSW works on Wine, if that's what you mean by cross platform.
>

Wine lets you run Windows binaries on Linux, yes. I strongly prefer
software that natively, for the sake of speed and stability, runs on a
variety of platforms. In the course of a work day I use at least two
different versions of each of Linux, Windows, SunOS, and Solaris
across literally dozens of different machines in different places with
varying restrictions on network access. Emacs exists on these
machines, or if not, I can at least compile it on those boxes or
connect to terminals where it exists. BSW would have to offer
unreproducible advantages over Org-mode to make the additional
overhead required by adding a limited-platform tool worthwhile.

Paper actully wins more often than not, but neither Emacs nor BSW will
ever get ported to that. :) Paper has its own well-known
disadvantages, and I think eventually identifying its use in
Cybroganize would improve the overall system.

> I checked out speedbar. It's not immediately obvious how you would
> duplicate the affordance, although you might be able to work some kind
> of hack around. If you've got one let me know, I'm interested.
>

Speedbar will show buffers, headers, tags, etc. I haven't got anything
to show you on this point. I try to duplicate the useful affordances
of BSW with bookmarks and indirect buffers. Your outlinersoftware.com
post gives useful hints. I'll speak again on this point when I've
something useful enough to share.

> Did you watch the long video of me doing the Ramit Sethi case study?
> That had some intensive BSW sorting that Emacs couldn't have done.
> Towards the end. Watch that to see what I'm talking about. I'm pretty
> sure you just haven't seen what I mean.
>

I haven't seen this video, no. Where can I find it?

> BSW has been around a long long time and as long as autosave is off
> it's pretty much bug free. It crashes rarely but then so does Emacs,
> surprisingly. You can backup on Dropbox premium if you're paranoid,
> and I recommend that anyway for beginners. Don't want to experience
> accidental branch deletion leading to mindloss.

BSW seems like well-proven software to me even without your
endorsements. I understand you use it because you've found it has
unmatched advantages. Your recommendation of Dropbox also has merit,
but I think simply adding hooks to org-mode such that it uses version
control provides a better method. My current employer blocks Dropbox
but not Github, for example.

[snip]

> Let's see what else. I just checked out Leo and it looks interesting,
> definitely, but it's the wrong kind of outliner. Almost all outliners
> distinguish between titles and body text for entries, and here Leo is
> no different. Lotsa interesting menus there, and I'm sure it's
> powerful. Mind telling us how you're using it?
>

I mention Leo because I search for a way to use it. I've lurked on
its mailing list for about a year, and that traffic very heavily
involves the core developers. My patient reading taught me more about
version control, Python development, and literate programming than the
use cases of Leo. I miss something, but with only a finite amount of
attention Leo keeps falling short of the bar.

> Treesheets is good but GUI oriented, again different. Workflowy is
> clunky as hell, I would rather use any number of offline outliners for
> better speed. It's good for a certain kind of use but not my heavy
> duty needs.
>

I suspect Treesheets sits only about one step removed from
spreadsheet pornography-- by which I mean it makes spreadsheets
thrilling and attractive without offering improvements. I can't see
any good way to use Workflowy. Slow, network-dependent, and just
lacking in substantial practical use. I asked about all three tools
because I want to see if I missed anything. Check your work, you know.

> And Org-Mode of course rocks, but it's nowhere near capable of
> building granularly sorted dynamic hierarchies of 500+ short items
> nested 10+ layers deep, much less 5,000 items 50 deep. I know because
> I tried. Didn't even work for just tasks. I made too many.
>

I'll take your word for Org-mode failing for five thousand items
in a fifty level hierarchy. I wouldn't have even tried such an
arrangement. I'd have instead opted for search over sort, tagging,
deduplication, and the like. Perhaps you did and found the results
lacking--I don't know.

[snip]

> ------
>
> ah yes, here's a how-to on emacs and indirect buffers. not up on the
> site yet, apparently:
>
> http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/3198

"Lastly, I felt it was imperative to share the little-known indirect
buffer trick because with it you can duplicate nearly all of
BrainStormWFO’s functionality in Org-Mode except for bookmark and
hotkey sorting, which makes it comparable to the vast bulk of 2-pane
outliners discussed here, not to mention its metadata or 'third pane'
features."

Your paragraph from 2011-09-27 outlines what's necessary to duplicate
BSW in Org-Mode.

1) Use indirect buffers to show headers
2) Use bookmarks for headers
3) Use hotkeys for sorting

What did I miss? What else does Org-Mode need to duplicate BSW?

4) Don't differentiate between titles and body text.
Don't use body text. How hard is this, really? I suspect I
misunderstand this point, though. Body text has many other uses, too,
such as code-blocks and tables.

5) Speed
I think that requires actual tests to determine what speed will
suffice.

6) Scalability
Again, actual tests. You encountered problems, but I'll need to
see them for myself.

Anything else?

[Joseph B]

I actually replied immediately to your last post, but some spam filter
wonkiness kept it from going through for a month.

Re paper's place - taking notes on a small notepad I always carry with
me, and drawing diagrams or other freehand type exercises. For that,
paper wins.

I agree about cross platform, I don't really like BSW in Wine either.
Too crashy. I have a KVM switch and synergy and a laptop on my desk
hooked into my desktop, so I can fully interoperate between two
systems, include file transfer if needed via TeamViewer. I think this
is the best solution available for cross platform woes. So I have two
screens on my desktop - a laptop and a big monitor, and one keyboard
mouse shared between them. And I occasionally tap the laptop keyboard.
It's a handy setup.

Aha, I didn't think you'd seen the case study video. You've felt
pieces of the elephant, but you haven't seen the elephant. Here's the
current address:
http://www.cyborganize.org/clarity/the-core-workflow/the-execution-loop/benefits-of-the-execution-loop/

(That URL might change when I redo the website again. )

This video just covers the beginning of one project. Putting the
multi-day feedback loop and full mind upload into a video is kinda
challenging. Thoughts on how to do that are welcome.

Ooh... I do have this awesome video of Ripley's POV as she navigates
treachery and horror in Alien I, seen through the evolution of her BSW
file. Maybe I should upload that. I was gonna splice it with the
appropriate frames from the movie. Any volunteers? Video editing ain't
my forte.

(The upshot of that video was that if Ripley had been using
Cyborganize, she would've figured out the android's duplicity much
sooner and been able to save some crewmembers. I forget how many.)

Yeah if you're only living in plain text then version control beats
Dropbox. I don't really know how to make text version control
transparent; it seems pretty wonky, hard to get human readable info
out of it. Any advice there??

Yeah Leo sounds like a huge time drain with no payout. Too bad... my
first name is Leo. (I switched to Joseph when I went to China because
"Leo" sounds the same as the common Chinese word "six". )

Lol, I see you are making me double check your own conclusions about
junk software. And here I thought you were offering me valuable
suggestions!

Re Org Mode and hierarchical proliferation, searching and tagging
capabilities were also overwhelmed.

"Your paragraph from 2011-09-27 outlines what's necessary to duplicate
BSW in Org-Mode.

1) Use indirect buffers to show headers
2) Use bookmarks for headers
3) Use hotkeys for sorting

What did I miss? What else does Org-Mode need to duplicate BSW?"

I'm not sure I understand #2. Bookmarks are not exactly the same as
movable marks. But yeah, Emacs could duplicate BSW with some
additional programming. And that would make my life complete, sadly.

"4) Don't differentiate between titles and body text.
Don't use body text. How hard is this, really? I suspect I
misunderstand this point, though. Body text has many other uses, too,
such as code-blocks and tables."

The problem is that the "titles" sections of outliners that do
differentiate are broken if you try to use the titles for body text.
See Ultra Recall - limited visible typing space, annoying mechanics,
etc.

"5) Speed
I think that requires actual tests to determine what speed will
suffice."

Dude watch the video and you'll see what speed I mean and why it's essential.

"6) Scalability
Again, actual tests. You encountered problems, but I'll need to
see them for myself."

I've forgotten somewhat our prior discussion, but yeah, full brain
upload is a huge challenge for most info systems in existence today.
Except for mine :)

I mean you'll occasionally see some wonk inventor who's got his full
brain uploaded into his system, but it's either not readily accessible
and manipulable, or it takes huge amounts of maintenance, or all of
the above. They're either impractical curiosities or incredibly
demanding ways of life. Mine is neither... I can walk away for months,
come back and start right up again. Which is the way it had to be,
because chronic illness kept interrupting my work.

Now back to crushing AI's on FreeCiv's "Hard" mode...

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