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Why are we still using Markdown?

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Re: Why are we still using Markdown?

#141

Post by Yokohiii »

jdefr89 wrote: post #115

A few things here. 1. Use a proper Markdown parser. The grammar is easy to define EBNF style most implementations I see now days use some recursive descent parser, etc… Regex implementation was used in original authors parser when it became popular. 2. You can resolve ambiguities and define more consistent symbols that make sense. Most markdown implementations are decent and follow common sense best practice syntax.…

I recently tried to create markdown like parser, I had to refer a lot to common marks. What I saw was madness. I never knew from casual use, that markdown is so complex. There is literally zero thought about parsing, it forces natural looking text into a format that can be structured into actual markup, but it has so many pitfalls and edge cases that it just feels wrong. Each time I've looked up another markdown parser I was stunned how overegineered they are. If you need an AST to parse something seemingly simple like markdown, then something went wrong. Probably every coreutil is smaller then the average markdown parser. Why?

Re: Why are we still using Markdown?

#142

Post by mkl »

BoredPositron wrote: post #78
sophacles wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly, you can also choose not to say it on your own blog.

Why the heck would you use the phrase "Why the heck" in any circumstance other than to avoid censorship/algorithmic penality on a social media platform?

I say "heck" instead of "hell" all the time. I'm not religious, so the invented "heck" is more of a swearword.

Re: Why are we still using Markdown?

#143

Post by Tadpole9181 »

krapp wrote: post #139
Tadpole9181 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No? That has always been a uniquely unreadable language with weird, arbitrary choices. And on no planet is it human readable without parsing.

On this planet, humans have read HTML without parsing for years. People building their first websites without any significant technical knowledge stole HTML by reading the source of other sites and edited it by hand.

Oh, please. Don't insult everyone here by pretending you actually believe HTML is a human readable format like markdown. It was never designed for that and has never claimed that.

What a rediculous thing to even say.

Re: Why are we still using Markdown?

#144

Post by wodenokoto »

> The real issue is that to ship a Markdown parser you also need a to ship a friendly HTML parser.

I’ve never attempted a markdown parser let alone any parser, so pardon me for asking a stupid question: doesn’t the markdown parser just let through HTML? Why does a markdown parser need to parse html?

Re: Why are we still using Markdown?

#145

Post by tdeck »

IshKebab wrote: post #16
kennywinker wrote: post #10

Ambiguous means unclear meaning, not that there is more than one way to achieve the same thing. Html has that same problem. Think , , , etc. That’s life. Get used to it.

is now hilariously called the " b ring attention to" element. I shit you not.

Apparently is the "idiomatic text element".

Maybe we can bring back all the fun tags by making them acronyms? can be "make a really quite entertaining effect".

Re: Why are we still using Markdown?

#147

Post by qu4z-2 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #43
IshKebab wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is now hilariously called the " b ring attention to" element. I shit you not.

That's the sort of "we started at the acronym and worked backwards" approach the Pentagon loves to do.

I've heard them called "backronyms", which I quite like.

Re: Why are we still using Markdown?

#148

Post by krapp »

Tadpole9181 wrote: post #143
krapp wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On this planet, humans have read HTML without parsing for years. People building their first websites without any significant technical knowledge stole HTML by reading the source of other sites and edited it by hand.

Oh, please . Don't insult everyone here by pretending you actually believe HTML is a human readable format like markdown. It was never designed for that and has never claimed that. What a rediculous thing to even say.

It is. Humans do read it, and have read it. Like any language it's just a matter of familiarity.

HTML was designed for humans to read and write long before Claude or compiling everything from typescript or whatever, when websites were all written by hand. In text editors. Even if you were using PHP and templates or CGI you wrote that shit by hand, which meant you had to be able to read it and understand it. Even if you were using Dreamweaver, you had to know how to read and write HTML at some point. WYSIWYG only gets you so far.

Is HTML more difficult to read than Markdown? Sure. It is impossible? Not even remotely. Teenagers did it putting together their Geocities websites.

You can be as snarky as you like, but facts are facts.

Re: Why are we still using Markdown?

#149

Post by temporallobe »

MD is not perfect, but it’s perfectly adequate.

Markdown apologist here - I think MD is the greatest thing since sliced bread and I use it a LOT. In fact, one project I work on has an entire git repo of just MD docs. It’s easy to maintain, and even non-tech people can author them with ease. In fat, I love that raw MD is entirely human-readable, and even if someone fat-fingers some of the syntax, it’s still very forgiving.

Don’t forget, many MD renderers support regular HTML embedding, including tags, which makes it a very flexible choice.

I don’t think it’s going anywhere!

Re: Why are we still using Markdown?

#150

Post by somat »

It is because the primary target for markdown is what would in any other formatting language be the source. Markdown has no source. It is guidelines for good looking plain text layout that when followed can be used to make a typeset document.

Everybody sort of knows it sucks as a formatting language. But we love it anyway. The benefit of being able to get a typeset document from a nice looking plaintext document is just too convenient. It is why specialized markdown editors make no sense to me. Why would you target something as shitty as markdown if you have a specialized editor? But really, if you at all care about the semantics of your document don't write it in markdown. But more importantly please don't kill the utility of markdown by adding semantics to it, all that noise just make the plain text look bad.

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