Whats Wrong with Markdown

Great post - I would stress that for me, one of the big limitations of Markdown is that it just doesn't do everything LaTeX does.

So although it might be slightly easier to get started with, it doesn't let you do everything you need (as a scientific writer).

The only real problem markdown has is the use of () around links, because both of those can be in the link (i.e. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URL_(disambiguation) ). It really should have picked something like which can't be in the link itself.

EDIT: the parser on this site seems to think that > is valid in a URL.

It wasn't meant as a rant against markdown -- just my observation that, for me, I found its simplicity limiting rather than helpful (I appreciate I could have made that clearer in my initial comment though)

First of all, I reject the premise of this article:

> Markdown (.MD) is a text format that lazy people use to write HTML.

This is just blatantly false. Markdown was never intended to replace HTML.

Second, the author points how how "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" is not very legible. I completely agree. However, this is contrived example that you are unlikely to encounter in practice. Just as it would be unlikely someone would mix bold and italics so closely in "real" formatted text.

The author then goes on to say that

> Lets face it, even Programmers don't like reading raw Markdown and so in the most popular .MD repository of them all - github - the Markdown files are rendered in the browser as nicely formatted HTML.

As a programmer, I actually really enjoy reading Markdown files. While it is true that it can be made more visually appealing for inclusion in a website like what happens on GitHub, it is great to have a somewhat standardized format that makes it pleasant to read those same files when you aren't browsing the files online. While I would bring up browsing files from the command-line here, the author seems to have a strong dislike for those of us who dabble in the black magic that is the shell.

All this aside, it is true that Markdown is not the right tool for everyone, and that the toolchain does not necessarily make it easy for beginners to get started writing all of their documents in Markdown. However, try to make someone open a Word document without Word, and see how easy that is. The lack of (beginner friendly) tooling is definitely not a sign of a poor format.

Finally, the author ends with

> However, if you have heard that there is this cool format available and it cures all your textual needs and it is just really really easy to use and really really quick...then think about the elixir you are being offered and re-read this document before slurping away...

  a) it is not a new format
  b) it never claims to cure all your textual needs - it aims to make it easier to create formatted text, where previously there was none
  c) it is, without a doubt, really really easy, and really really quick, because any plain text document is valid Markdown. All Markdown does is attempt to standardize some (already fairly common) methods for applying *simple* formatting to that text.

While the author bashes Markdown's lack of standardization, the cases that are brought up by CommonMark are more important for implementors than for writers, and "regular" users will likely find the informal language description more than satisfactory for common usage.

TL;DR: The author is hating on Markdown, mostly due to incorrect assumptions and seemingly a personal dislike for plain-text formats.

I'll agree markdown has some strengths and weaknesses. The image syntax is terrible, and even the link syntax is a little iffy. But the bullets and the bolding? Yes, it's excellent, it does exactly what it needs to be. Whenever I need a user to give me rich text for something, I tell them about Markdown. No worries about all the font and styling screw-ups from a word document where the user has pasted text.

"I need the user to give me plain text but they also need bold, hyperlinks, and bullets" is the use-case for markdown. It does this fine. It could do things better, but it does its job fine.

I have had users get annoyed, however, that _underscore_ doesn't underline.