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How Markdown took over the world

anildash.com

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Re: How Markdown took over the world

#41

Post by renewiltord »

w10-1 wrote: post #6

This is good and detailed, but misses a broader trend: how "worse is better" started to win - first Java over C++, then python and javascript over Java, and here markdown over Word and docbook. When markdown emerged, docbook was getting even more elaborate, and vendors everywhere had for decades been locking people into frameworks and languages with fantastic features that were hard to use -- and then the internet bu…

I'm sorry, what? Markdown over Word is "Worse is Better". You are shitting me. Markdown over Word is "Better is Better". Haha, dear god. MS Word? It must be some other word surely. MS Word is awful today.

Re: How Markdown took over the world

#42

Post by twoodfin »

ntnsndr wrote: post #35
simonw wrote: post #16

Here's a fun trick: if you add .text to any URL on Markdown creator John Gruber's blog you'll get to see the hand-authored (bar the metadata and tags bits) Markdown he wrote for that entry. Example: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2026/01/09/moylan.text ... and if you look closely at some of the entries you might spot custom Markdown features that aren't part of the published spec.

Funny that he didn't use the .md extension. Maybe because he started doing it before he expected his markup would merit its own filetype?

More likely because the whole point of Markdown was to be embedded in text, not a freestanding format for an entire document.

Re: How Markdown took over the world

#43

Post by twoodfin »

Apocryphon wrote: post #7

> that year’s largely uninspiring slate of U.S. presidential candidates like Wesley Clark, Gary Hart and, yes, Howard Dean helped propel blogs into mainstream awareness Gary Hart?

My god, I think that’s right, & he at least considered it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Hart

Yup.

It was a strange time in Democratic politics: The assumption after 9/11 and the success of the GOP in the 2002 midterms was that GWB was going to be reelected in a walk. So not a lot of big names crowding the field.

Re: How Markdown took over the world

#44

Post by drob518 »

atoav wrote: post #10
w10-1 wrote: post #6

This is good and detailed, but misses a broader trend: how "worse is better" started to win - first Java over C++, then python and javascript over Java, and here markdown over Word and docbook. When markdown emerged, docbook was getting even more elaborate, and vendors everywhere had for decades been locking people into frameworks and languages with fantastic features that were hard to use -- and then the internet bu…

The thing this oversees is that the interface is important, simpler is not worse, it can in fact often mean better. For example while docbook may have some technical, the user experience for someone who just wants to write some basic stuff is absolutely horrible . If I imagine beginner-coding me, the first thing I would ask for example is why the hell not just use html by that point. Markdown is a thing I could peese…

Simple is frequently superior.

Re: How Markdown took over the world

#45

Post by erlkonig »

I just hate that (1) you can't nest anything into a table (2) it's different everywhere.

Restructured Text is much more capable, and yet here we are, still using Markdown.

My markdown pages often also have HTML in them, I mainly use Markdown so if I decide some overlong thing I wrote on Reddit actually doesn't suck, I can copy-paste it into a webpage, and my web-server's .smd handler does the convertion. Lowest common denominator. :(

Re: How Markdown took over the world

#46

Post by wiseowise »

w10-1 wrote: post #6

This is good and detailed, but misses a broader trend: how "worse is better" started to win - first Java over C++, then python and javascript over Java, and here markdown over Word and docbook. When markdown emerged, docbook was getting even more elaborate, and vendors everywhere had for decades been locking people into frameworks and languages with fantastic features that were hard to use -- and then the internet bu…

> how "worse is better" started to win

> first Java over C++

...really? Java was literally created to fix C++ issues.

> then python and javascript over Java

That's just different, not worse.

Re: How Markdown took over the world

#47

Post by anildash »

w10-1 wrote: post #6

This is good and detailed, but misses a broader trend: how "worse is better" started to win - first Java over C++, then python and javascript over Java, and here markdown over Word and docbook. When markdown emerged, docbook was getting even more elaborate, and vendors everywhere had for decades been locking people into frameworks and languages with fantastic features that were hard to use -- and then the internet bu…

I actually had a digression into "worse is better", but the piece was already pushing 5,000 words, so I figured I probably was better of leaving out such a big topic. But you're right that's a larger trend that mattered. I think of it more as a triumph of Postelism in the Internet at large as more people came online, too.

Re: How Markdown took over the world

#49

Post by leejoramo »

twoodfin wrote: post #42
ntnsndr wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny that he didn't use the .md extension. Maybe because he started doing it before he expected his markup would merit its own filetype?

More likely because the whole point of Markdown was to be embedded in text, not a freestanding format for an entire document.

This is exactly why.

It is my assumption that Gruber chose ‘.text’ over ‘.txt’ for several reasons. To give it a little difference when searching for files. To be more legible to non-computer people. And finally, while Classic MacOS did not use file extensions, the Resource Fork type code for text files was ‘TEXT’

Re: How Markdown took over the world

#50

Post by anildash »

Apocryphon wrote: post #7

> that year’s largely uninspiring slate of U.S. presidential candidates like Wesley Clark, Gary Hart and, yes, Howard Dean helped propel blogs into mainstream awareness Gary Hart?

I know it seems quite absurd! I actually just added in to this piece a photo I took of the CNN screen that (I believe) was the first mention of the word "blog" that they ever put on-screen; it also has a mention of Hart's campaign. Very low-res, but the potato quality is worth it for the historical value, I think.
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