I recommend trying out Asciidoc: https://asciidoc.org/
The spec is fairly comprehensive. It's a lightweight markup language like Markdown. It has decent editor support.
Why Is Markdown Popular?
101–110 of 179 posts
Re: Why Is Markdown Popular?
#102The claim that Markdown will never go beyond developers is kind of ironic considering markdown was co-invented by John Gruber, a non-developer. There’s a lot of issues with this post, which basically completely misunderstands what markdown is, what its purpose is, and why it’s successful. Btw, why are numbered lists so hard in Markdown?
It's also amusing given that Microsoft teams has at least limited support for markdown. Depending on how you define a markdown user, it may be a that the majority of people typing markdown have never written a line of code but have discovered the convenience of markdown from being power users of Microsoft teams.
Re: Why Is Markdown Popular?
#103>It’s barely a spec Which is fitting. It evolved long before the term 'markdown' itself existed, a practice having been used in email and usenet and BBSes for many years before. The 'spec' is just trying to codify the already-existing usage, which evolved organically in many different areas by many different people. >You need to use a WYSIWYG tool or you don’t use it. No, no you absolutely don't. Almost no one uses a…
> No, no you absolutely don't. Almost no one uses a WYSIWYG for markdown. That would completely negate the point.
Afaik GitHub and Stackoverflow use markdown WYSIWYG editors. That'd cover a big chunk of users.
Re: Why Is Markdown Popular?
#104> The HTML output is antiquated at best. Though the basic structure of headers and paragraphs is generally semantic, there's no modern semantic elements such as main, article, section, nav, header, footer, figure, picture, etc. Embedding videos, social media widgets, etc. isn't possible at all. While most other complaints sounded more like the typical markdown grumpiness I've heard before, I do find this an interesti…
The point of Markdown isn't to replace HTML. It lets you write a plaintext document that can be post-processed into a rich text document (including HTML). It doesn't define the rich text template, styling, or anything else. It certainly isn't meant to have a 1:1 relationship with every HTML element. With Markdown I can type up a document in the most brain dead of editors. I can then effectively read that document in…
I agree that that is the "point of Markdown", but that is also not as relevant as how it is actually used.
It's one thing to use it as a better BB-code in chat programs, forums and on Github, as other comments mention. However, the article seems to be complaining about how it is used to write websites and articles even when patching the holes in Markdown end up being more of a hassle than just using HTML (that MDN screenshot looks horrible). That goes beyond the example you are talking about.
The other argument, that perhaps the issue with rich text formatting isn't the rich text formatting, but the fact that historically rich text formatting tools tended produce awful HTML, also sounds like there might be something to it (not sure if that's still true though). I cannot imagine that it would be that hard to produce minimal HTML that supports 90% of basic rich text needs one has, in a way that is perfectly compatible with any classless CSS framework you then decide to throw at the output.
Re: Why Is Markdown Popular?
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've heard very similar arguments, for Perl, a couple of decades ago. And yeah, it's not entirely wrong. Perl was useful, too. But I desperately want the thing that is for markdown what modern JavaScript, Python and Go have become for Perl. I want a markup language that supports the most basic things, looks reasonable on the eyes in un-rendered form (so we don't need terrible rich text editors everywhere), and is ver…
I just figured out how to get the Asciidoc plugin in VScode to display Latex formulas. Asciidoc might be it. It's fairly comprehensive. That, or Org-mode -- but then you have to learn Emacs.
Asciidoc looks really promising. Thank you!
Re: Why Is Markdown Popular?
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've heard very similar arguments, for Perl, a couple of decades ago. And yeah, it's not entirely wrong. Perl was useful, too. But I desperately want the thing that is for markdown what modern JavaScript, Python and Go have become for Perl. I want a markup language that supports the most basic things, looks reasonable on the eyes in un-rendered form (so we don't need terrible rich text editors everywhere), and is ver…
I just figured out how to get the Asciidoc plugin in VScode to display Latex formulas. Asciidoc might be it. It's fairly comprehensive. That, or Org-mode -- but then you have to learn Emacs.
There is an org-mode port in vscode. But I haven't used it. I use Emacs!
Re: Why Is Markdown Popular?
#107MD is popular because most do not know org-mode, that's is. As usual bad things spread most thanks to some third party interests...
piggy backing on this comment to mention that github can render .org files :).
Alas, not perfectly, but yes. All of my repos have readme.org, not README.md
Re: Why Is Markdown Popular?
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your first two points are misleading: 1. The article conflated lightweight markup languages as a class and Markdown in various places, and you’re making it worse by performing that conflation in different places. Markdown was a specific invention which took parts of ancient customs (some from at least as far back as the typewriter era), but applied various other rules never before seen. It was absolutely not just a c…
I make markdown tables by hand. Very simple ones. And simple is good. Statements like “no one” are silly because they are easy to disprove and then get into “well maybe you do, but I don’t; therefore…” There are lots of tables in markdown. I’m not sure how you definitively know if they are made by hand or cut and pasted from a helper tool. Anyway, it’s a dumb argument to make. The beauty of markdown is that if you do…
> Statements like “no one” are silly because they are easy to disprove and then get into “well maybe you do, but I don’t; therefore…”
You know exactly what the intended meaning is, because it’s a common idiom. For example, “nobody goes there anymore.” This is pseudopedantry just like intentionally misinterpreting phrases of the form “this or that” as nonexclusive disjunctions is. It can be used humorously, but taken seriously it’s just tiresome.
Re: Why Is Markdown Popular?
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you include Slack's Markdoon then they default to the WYSIWYG editor so probably > 1%.
Slack has nothing to do with Markdown. The plain text that its text box turns into formatting bears no meaningful resemblance whatsoever (it’s more similar to some other lightweight markup languages, and really it’s just completely its own thing), and you mostly can’t interact with it in that format anyway. (See also https://api.slack.com/reference/surfaces/formatting .)
The page you linked says "This formatting is similar to Markdown markup" so it has something to do with it. Given paragraphs, quotes, lists, and code are interchangeable it is certainly regrettably that links, bold, and italic are different but *bold* vs **bold** is still a meaningful resemblance in my book.
Re: Why Is Markdown Popular?
#110>It’s barely a spec Which is fitting. It evolved long before the term 'markdown' itself existed, a practice having been used in email and usenet and BBSes for many years before. The 'spec' is just trying to codify the already-existing usage, which evolved organically in many different areas by many different people. >You need to use a WYSIWYG tool or you don’t use it. No, no you absolutely don't. Almost no one uses a…
> No, no you absolutely don't. Almost no one uses a WYSIWYG for markdown. That would completely negate the point. > Probably 99% wrong. I've never met anyone that chose to make things more difficult for themselves by using a clunky WYSIWYG instead of just typing the markdown in a text editor. Sometimes that's an IDE, but that's beside the point. Plain text does matter. You repeat this point but the trend of markdown…
I agree about Obsidian. But Ulysses in my experience isn't WYSIWYG, it's mostly syntax highlighting.