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Consistent Technical Documents Using Emacs and Org Mode

spudlyo · 73.8K views · 2019-11-17 · 22:43

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Overview

A demo of writing technical documents in Emacs Org mode using org-babel, so that code blocks and generated content stay consistent when things change. The author shares the demo files and his dotfiles.

On Hacker News

HN commenters recommend it as a practical illustration of what Org mode and literate programming can do for documentation.

Recommended by 2 HN people across 4 months · HN mentions 2020–2025

Topics

Testing, debugging & developer toolsSoftware practice, open source & careers
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emacsorg modeorg babelliterate programmingtechnical writing

What people said

spudlyo · 2025-04 · Recommendation

Thanks for the shout-out! I think org-babel is really well suited for this task, and can make some really great documentation. You can check out the video[0] from the talk and a git repo[1] with a more advanced demonstration. [0]: [VIDEO] [1]: [LINK]

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spudlyo · 2021-08 · Recommendation

Org mode does a lot of different things, but one use case I find interesting is to be able to mix prose and program output in a technical document in a way that keeps things consistent when things change. I made a video[0] a year or so ago that explores Org's literate programming features that I think does a pretty good job of illustrating the power of Org. [0]: [VIDEO]

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spudlyo · 2021-03 · Recommendation

I made a video[0] showing off the power of org-babel, which is the part of org that lets you embed dynamic code blocks in your document. In the video I write a little essay[1] on how git stores data that has a lot of dynamic content that is managed by org. It's a bit like reproducible research or literate programming, but for me it's all about writing technical documents that are easy to keep consistent when things change. [0]: [VIDEO] [1]: [LINK]

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Sources

Video by spudlyo, played through YouTube.

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