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We should have Markdown-rendered websites

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Re: We should have Markdown-rendered websites

#61

Post by pocketarc »

graypegg wrote: post #46
buro9 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HTML is a subset of Markdown. You can include in Markdown any and all HTML. What Markdown provides here is an even lower barrier to entry for the majority of people... they just write text, learn a fraction more Markdown to so more... and if they want total control they eventually learn HTML too. It's not mutually exclusive... Markdown includes HTML.

—I’d say it’s the other way around isn’t it? Wouldn’t Markdown be a subset of HTML, since all markdown can be expressed in HTML but not all HTML can be expressed in Markdown?— Edit: Markdown can contain HTML that gets meaningfully interpreted as markup as well. I’d also say HTML is not difficult to write, even for someone new to the concept. I don’t think anyone making their GeoCities homepage was too strained learni…

As far as I’m aware, you can write any HTML in Markdown, and it will be rendered normally. So Markdown can indeed contain any and all HTML.

HTML can’t contain Markdown at all - a ### in HTML does nothing but a hello in Markdown does exactly what you expect it to.

Re: We should have Markdown-rendered websites

#62

Post by kuramitropolis »

graypegg wrote: post #46
buro9 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HTML is a subset of Markdown. You can include in Markdown any and all HTML. What Markdown provides here is an even lower barrier to entry for the majority of people... they just write text, learn a fraction more Markdown to so more... and if they want total control they eventually learn HTML too. It's not mutually exclusive... Markdown includes HTML.

—I’d say it’s the other way around isn’t it? Wouldn’t Markdown be a subset of HTML, since all markdown can be expressed in HTML but not all HTML can be expressed in Markdown?— Edit: Markdown can contain HTML that gets meaningfully interpreted as markup as well. I’d also say HTML is not difficult to write, even for someone new to the concept. I don’t think anyone making their GeoCities homepage was too strained learni…

Markdown allows you to just write HTML in it. That makes it a superset of HTML.

HTML is not difficult to write, it's difficult to edit.

A S-expression-based dialect of HTML (with macros!) would be fun.

Re: We should have Markdown-rendered websites

#63

Post by graypegg »

enos_feedler wrote: post #59
graypegg wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

—I’d say it’s the other way around isn’t it? Wouldn’t Markdown be a subset of HTML, since all markdown can be expressed in HTML but not all HTML can be expressed in Markdown?— Edit: Markdown can contain HTML that gets meaningfully interpreted as markup as well. I’d also say HTML is not difficult to write, even for someone new to the concept. I don’t think anyone making their GeoCities homepage was too strained learni…

If say 10% of the pool of internet users at the time could make an HTML page on Geocities, what % of today’s pool of internet users could do it? The pool has gotten much larger and much less tech savvy on average.

Well I guess the next logical question is what % would not make an HTML page, but would make a Markdown page.

I feel like the Venn diagram is nearly a circle, but I don’t have anything to back that up.

To most people, symbols and words being “special” in some text = coding, I’m still not convinced that the cognitive load of:

# my title

Is different than

my title

Re: We should have Markdown-rendered websites

#64

Post by graypegg »

pocketarc wrote: post #61
graypegg wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

—I’d say it’s the other way around isn’t it? Wouldn’t Markdown be a subset of HTML, since all markdown can be expressed in HTML but not all HTML can be expressed in Markdown?— Edit: Markdown can contain HTML that gets meaningfully interpreted as markup as well. I’d also say HTML is not difficult to write, even for someone new to the concept. I don’t think anyone making their GeoCities homepage was too strained learni…

As far as I’m aware, you can write any HTML in Markdown, and it will be rendered normally. So Markdown can indeed contain any and all HTML. HTML can’t contain Markdown at all - a ### in HTML does nothing but a hello in Markdown does exactly what you expect it to.

Oh I see, my mistake. Thanks!

Re: We should have Markdown-rendered websites

#66

Post by jbverschoor »

pocketarc wrote: post #61
graypegg wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

—I’d say it’s the other way around isn’t it? Wouldn’t Markdown be a subset of HTML, since all markdown can be expressed in HTML but not all HTML can be expressed in Markdown?— Edit: Markdown can contain HTML that gets meaningfully interpreted as markup as well. I’d also say HTML is not difficult to write, even for someone new to the concept. I don’t think anyone making their GeoCities homepage was too strained learni…

As far as I’m aware, you can write any HTML in Markdown, and it will be rendered normally. So Markdown can indeed contain any and all HTML. HTML can’t contain Markdown at all - a ### in HTML does nothing but a hello in Markdown does exactly what you expect it to.

So you can't create a simple markdown rendered without creating a full-blown html/css renderer. So a cli renderer doesn't make sense either in that case.

Html 'support' is just a hack for any shortcomings of markdown.

Re: We should have Markdown-rendered websites

#68

Post by thih9 »

lake_vincent wrote: post #12
falcolas wrote: post #5

OK. Which flavor of markdown should we get every browser manufacturer to use?

Let's just embrace the chaos and develop a new flavor for every browser until there are precisely 31 different flavors of Markdown. We cap it there, Baskin Robbins style, and then watch the world burn.

We could have a higher level language and tooling that transpiles everything to all known markdown flavors and bundles them all. But I guess one of these 31 flavors already does that.

Re: We should have Markdown-rendered websites

#70

Post by bccdee »

Markdown is a convenient but deeply limited markup language with only a small subset of html's features. And yes, limitations are good because we want documents not web apps, etc, etc, but I mean "images can't have captions" limited, "navigation bars don't exist" limited. Actual important features of html don't exist in markdown, which is why almost every markdown platform ends up adding extensions and shortcodes. Why use markdown at all? Just use html.

"But html isn't style-agnostic" yes it is. CSS isn't style-agnostic. Instead of a markdown browser, how about a browser with a fixed stylesheet and no js? You don't even need a browser for that, that could just be a userscript that gets plugged into an existing browser. It'd break non-compliant websites that require javascript or custom css, but so would a markdown browser. Most people wouldn't write content for it, but most people wouldn't write content for a markdown browser either.

"But html is cluttered" it doesn't have to be. This is a valid webpage:

    
    Page Title
    Page Title

    
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.
    Ut ac lorem ut massa euismod vestibulum.

    
Nullam rutrum blandit eleifend. Aenean a varius diam.
    Morbi sodales velit nunc, vel vestibulum lorem tempus sodales.
Personally, I prefer writing in markdown, but that's no reason to insert a markdown renderer into browsers. HTML can already be as sleek and readable as you want. If we added a new type of markup for anybody with a personal preference, we'd never stop.
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