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MDN converted to Markdown

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31–40 of 140 posts

Re: MDN converted to Markdown

#31
post #8
post #6

It's too bad that AsciiDoc still hasn't really caught on like Markdown. It's a whole lot nicer for more-complicated documents. I understand their reasons for not using it here, but it still seems like a perfect fit for this task. Eclipse still seems to be working on a formal spec, but hopefully that will help implementations to grow and adoption to increase. In any case, avoiding raw HTML is a huge improvement. I lik…

Markdown is "worse is better". AsciiDoc is more powerful, but has a steeper learning curve, therefore it lost. tale as old as tech. EDIT: i'm compiling a list of "Worse is Better" technology battles: - Mixed paradigm languages vs Functional languages - Typescript vs Flow - React+Redux beat Angular and Elm - VHS beat Betamax - AC beat DC - what else? please share more here https://hashnode.com/preview/636602dec7fec996…

>AC beat DC

Well that's not true, especially not in a data-center. It's just better for general long-distance energy transfer.

Re: MDN converted to Markdown

#32
post #21
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like literate programming. I've used it once or twice for training material and as "fancy" slides at an internal presentation. Worked quite well as one-offs but I'm not sure that scales wrt its usability and maintenance.

What were the issues you saw on usability and maintenance? Things like jupyter notebooks and observablehq.com seem to be bringing in a breath of fresh air to literate programming.

They are lacking implementations though and they are more about programming things than writing your config in them. Sure, you can put config in code, but that sounds like a terrible idea for non-DSLs.

Re: MDN converted to Markdown

#33
post #7
post #2

Oh man a markdown local copy of MDN would be fantastic!

install zeal for offline docs including mdn https://zealdocs.org/

Zeal is great but we should also mention https://kapeli.com/dash because zeal can use the docsets from dash for free, pretty nice i would say, and worth supporting dash if you have a mac.

Re: MDN converted to Markdown

#34
post #33
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

install zeal for offline docs including mdn https://zealdocs.org/

Zeal is great but we should also mention https://kapeli.com/dash because zeal can use the docsets from dash for free, pretty nice i would say, and worth supporting dash if you have a mac.

the mac link on the zeal homepage actually also links to dash

Re: MDN converted to Markdown

#35
post #8
post #6

It's too bad that AsciiDoc still hasn't really caught on like Markdown. It's a whole lot nicer for more-complicated documents. I understand their reasons for not using it here, but it still seems like a perfect fit for this task. Eclipse still seems to be working on a formal spec, but hopefully that will help implementations to grow and adoption to increase. In any case, avoiding raw HTML is a huge improvement. I lik…

Markdown is "worse is better". AsciiDoc is more powerful, but has a steeper learning curve, therefore it lost. tale as old as tech. EDIT: i'm compiling a list of "Worse is Better" technology battles: - Mixed paradigm languages vs Functional languages - Typescript vs Flow - React+Redux beat Angular and Elm - VHS beat Betamax - AC beat DC - what else? please share more here https://hashnode.com/preview/636602dec7fec996…

In what way is DC better than AC?

To my knowledge AC rightfully won - much easier to transport over long distances, whereas DC required a generator nearly on every city block (among other reasons).

Re: MDN converted to Markdown

#36
post #8
post #6

It's too bad that AsciiDoc still hasn't really caught on like Markdown. It's a whole lot nicer for more-complicated documents. I understand their reasons for not using it here, but it still seems like a perfect fit for this task. Eclipse still seems to be working on a formal spec, but hopefully that will help implementations to grow and adoption to increase. In any case, avoiding raw HTML is a huge improvement. I lik…

Markdown is "worse is better". AsciiDoc is more powerful, but has a steeper learning curve, therefore it lost. tale as old as tech. EDIT: i'm compiling a list of "Worse is Better" technology battles: - Mixed paradigm languages vs Functional languages - Typescript vs Flow - React+Redux beat Angular and Elm - VHS beat Betamax - AC beat DC - what else? please share more here https://hashnode.com/preview/636602dec7fec996…

PHP

Re: MDN converted to Markdown

#37
post #6

It's too bad that AsciiDoc still hasn't really caught on like Markdown. It's a whole lot nicer for more-complicated documents. I understand their reasons for not using it here, but it still seems like a perfect fit for this task. Eclipse still seems to be working on a formal spec, but hopefully that will help implementations to grow and adoption to increase. In any case, avoiding raw HTML is a huge improvement. I lik…

> In any case, avoiding raw HTML is a huge improvement.

Why is that? Raw HTML is quite simple to understand and edit. Especially modern html5. There may be a slightly marginal improvement with bold markings with stars versus b tags, but I wouldn't call it "huge" by any means.

EDIT: of course, you can build nightmares with plain HTML. Especially when it is auto-generated. But hand-written simple HTML is essentially equivalent to markdown, and I'd say that it is even simpler for some things (e.g., links, anchors and tables).

Re: MDN converted to Markdown

#38
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Markdown is "worse is better". AsciiDoc is more powerful, but has a steeper learning curve, therefore it lost. tale as old as tech. EDIT: i'm compiling a list of "Worse is Better" technology battles: - Mixed paradigm languages vs Functional languages - Typescript vs Flow - React+Redux beat Angular and Elm - VHS beat Betamax - AC beat DC - what else? please share more here https://hashnode.com/preview/636602dec7fec996…

- Javascript vs * - English vs * Both awful languages in many ways. And yet, here we are. Also who the fuck wants to speak Esperanto? In some cases I don’t think it’s “worse is better”, much as “the flexible beats the over-designed ivory tower”. Another way of looking at it is “capabilities matter, vulnerabilities don’t”. Think of a river carving its way through a valley. It is terribly undesigned and messy but it fl…

English isn't a bad language; its spelling is highly inconsistent, but for the rest it's simpler than most other languages.

The only advantage Esperanto has is that it doesn't give (much of) an advantage to pre-existing native speakers. For the rest, it's perhaps even harder to learn than English, and --when hypothetically adopted on a large scale-- will develop into regional dialects.

Re: MDN converted to Markdown

#39
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Javascript vs * - English vs * Both awful languages in many ways. And yet, here we are. Also who the fuck wants to speak Esperanto? In some cases I don’t think it’s “worse is better”, much as “the flexible beats the over-designed ivory tower”. Another way of looking at it is “capabilities matter, vulnerabilities don’t”. Think of a river carving its way through a valley. It is terribly undesigned and messy but it fl…

English isn't a bad language; its spelling is highly inconsistent, but for the rest it's simpler than most other languages. The only advantage Esperanto has is that it doesn't give (much of) an advantage to pre-existing native speakers. For the rest, it's perhaps even harder to learn than English, and --when hypothetically adopted on a large scale-- will develop into regional dialects.

Spanish spelling is better, pronunciation is easier (no th, only 5 vowels, etc.), native speakers almost as numerable, allows you to understand Portuguese, Italian, etc.

It wasn't chosen, America just won

Re: MDN converted to Markdown

#40
post #6

It's too bad that AsciiDoc still hasn't really caught on like Markdown. It's a whole lot nicer for more-complicated documents. I understand their reasons for not using it here, but it still seems like a perfect fit for this task. Eclipse still seems to be working on a formal spec, but hopefully that will help implementations to grow and adoption to increase. In any case, avoiding raw HTML is a huge improvement. I lik…

Out of curiosity I've looked up "asciidoc tutorial". 10% into the first page and I see this: A [.myrole]#custom role# must be fulfilled by the theme. Wait, is this in example 7 of 97? That's already... disturbing? But I scroll just a little down and I see examples 11 and 12: https://chat.asciidoc.org[Discuss AsciiDoc,role=external,window=_blank] CAUTION If the link text contains a comma and the text is followed by on…

Having to use quotes (or any other symbol) sometimes based on learned rules is a big no-no for lightweight markup in my book.
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