This viewpoint talks about consuming markdown natively without reference to how non-technical users view it: as rendered HTML. At best, this makes a case for introducing a few more useful constructs into markdown (without ruining it's simplicity of course).
Using Claude Code: The unreasonable effectiveness of HTML
251–260 of 308 posts
Re: Using Claude Code: The unreasonable effectiveness of HTML
#252When exploring a new idea or tool, my go to prompt is ``` In a single index.html, no dependencies, sparse styling, create an app that ``` Even before AI, it's how I built small tools, and there's something lovely about being able to email my friends the tool, and tell them "If you want to make a change, toss it to your LLM!"
I recommend allowing AI to use TailwindCSS and Alpine in the context, as this would generate great lightweight dynamic web pages.
I don't know why my comment was down voted. Can someone tell me why?
Re: Using Claude Code: The unreasonable effectiveness of HTML
#253The solution is latex
Thanks for this.
It's a very beautiful language, it's quite simple, if you like simple.
Re: Using Claude Code: The unreasonable effectiveness of HTML
#254Have been working with HTML in decades and still it's quicker to write markdown for simple documents. Now if you'd have some middle ground that would be nice. And actually there are already things like Githubs Markdown which has more features, you can embed mermaid etc. Or you'd use something like MDX (which readme.com is using internally) where you mix in components when needed - those could even be based on somethi…
I think MDX is the perfect middle ground. I'm gonna start using it instead of plain Markdown thanks to this comment. Thanks!!
Re: Using Claude Code: The unreasonable effectiveness of HTML
#255I posted this same Twitter article about 5-6 hours before this post was made and got only a couple of likes and zero comments. What gives? Using Claude Code: The Unreasonable Effectiveness of HTML https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48069859
Bad luck but doesn't really matter, does it?
I'm just curious. Also not sure what's the rule regarding submitting dupes.
Re: Using Claude Code: The unreasonable effectiveness of HTML
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
Templated though, not manually writing it out for every blog post say. I think GP means it just has more friction as a writing format than markdown for example.
Basic HTML really isn’t a big step up from Markdown though, and no one was complaining about that. In some instances it’s simpler even. I often forget the exact syntax for a table in Markdown, by comparison , and are easy to remember. All of the major parts of Markdown are pretty easy, , , etc etc. It was written with human authorship in mind. Typing out for every paragraph is annoying, for sure. But a converter that…
When using AI, I often find myself preferring either plain text (no markup whatsoever; just manual / text editor formatting of text blocks) or simple html to markdown, depending on the situation. To the point that I rarely see any point in using markdown for anything. If it is meant for to be a simple text mainly for human consumption, the markups often don't add much clarity (and often bring in an amateurish look, as if the author didn't know how to emphasize using English constructs), in which case plain text feels more pprofessional. If it is meant to be [lightly] processed before being presented to a human, or if it is meant to be processed by a tool / bot / LLM, then HTML is infinitely more straightforward.
Also I often call out my colleagues if they try to put a table in markdown. Markdown is not built for tabular data in most professional settings (i.e., one or two table cell could easily take a whole line of markdown to express). A basic some number goes a long way.
Re: Using Claude Code: The unreasonable effectiveness of HTML
#257> I'm not sure what direction to take the onboarding screen.
I don't know, maybe, you could just pay people to use it, and see where the problems are, and then be informed by that?
We're using LLMs as if human contact and experience is hard to come by at a point in history when it's anything but. These goofy models are a complete and total dead end. They're actively in the way of better approaches.
Re: Using Claude Code: The unreasonable effectiveness of HTML
#258hey Siri, make some web pages that extol the virtues of getting my favourite AI to use HTML instead of MD.
Re: Using Claude Code: The unreasonable effectiveness of HTML
#259Quarkdown is a partial and interesting alternative : https://github.com/iamgio/quarkdown
This one is interesting and has potential, for me. I never liked HTML/XML/etc and Markdown might be a little _too_ minimal.
Re: Using Claude Code: The unreasonable effectiveness of HTML
#260This reminds me of some article on HN a while back that XML makes Claude more effective... I guess it makes even more sense to ask for HTML back, since it is XML.