◉ Org
Org is a 'major mode' - i.e. specialized file format and suite of associated tooling - for the
Emacs text editor. The left panel in the image above illustrates my local setup editing a copy of the Taromaru ST.
It behaves somewhat like Rich Text or Markdown, offering terse inline syntax for text styling, complex structure like nested headlines, tables, inline images, tagged sections (a.k.a. quotes, spoilers, code,) broader functionality like templating, snippet expansion, agenda management, work clocking, and much more.
But - unlike other formats - it accomplishes all of this entirely in user-facing plain text. No HTML/XML style nested tags, opaque backend data, proprietary graphical widgets, or other common text package or format bugbears. Just simple, clever characters, lots of hotkeys, and some very pretty themes. Owing to this, it can be read and written outside of Emacs like any other plain text - albeit without the various built-in utilities. See
Example for details.
ox-farm implements a Shmups export backend for
Org, so you can export to it in much the same way as other supported format, like HTML, PDF, or LaTeX.
For those looking to pick up
Org,
System Crafters has a good series of tutorial videos, and accompanying quick-start
Emacs configuration.
◉ Emacs
GNU Emacs is the world's longest-standing extensible text editor. It takes the extremely broad problem of managing characters on a screen, and - effectively - solves it.
Which is to say, it's better referred to as an advanced framework for text-based applications. Or, for the pedantic, an extremely well-integrated
Lisp interpreter.
One could further state that it's more of a 'do everything' program at this point in its life, ranging from a humble text editor, through email client, feed reader, web browser, operating system, all the way to full blown
organise my entire life plz Zettelkasten system.
For a more practical example: In this case we're just using it to compose, but
Emacs is powerful enough that it could scale all the way to hosting a full-featured Shmups Forum desktop client.
◉ Lisp
Lisp (or
List Processor) is a prolific family of programming languages established during the 1980s, which rose to prominence in the field of Artificial Intelligence research.
Its most interesting property is
homoiconicity - which is to say, its internal and external representations are essentially the same. To wit, it's just about the simplest language you can invent without sacrificing expressibility or falling down the esolang hole.
It's simple. Elegant, if a little bracket-heavy. And
Emacs - and by extension,
ox-farm - is entirely written and configured in a specialized version of it called
Emacs Lisp, meaning it'll run consistently anywhere.
Fret not - you don't need to know programming to use
Emacs unless you want to write a plugin; using
Lisp to write the equivalent of an INI or .conf file is quite trivial.
But know that
Lisp is a prime factor in
Emacs' evolution into a freestanding ultra-hackable software ecosystem, and is - more generally - quite cool
◉ Further reading
GNU Emacs
Org mode for GNU Emacs
Lisp (programming language) - Wikipedia