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Whats Wrong with Markdown

adamhyde.net

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Re: Whats Wrong with Markdown

#31

Post by glomph »

Zarel wrote: post #28
ahoge wrote: post #3

> Markdown (.MD) is a text format that lazy people use to write HTML. Markdown is a markup language for relatively simple structured documents. You can convert it to HTML, but you could as well convert it to something else. > However that is where the use case ends. .MD is not a useful format for many other cases unless you want to prove to the programmers that you too can do tricky stuff in plain text. For the rest…

I'd disagree that regular users don't have any problems with it. One very common problem I've seen is a conversation like "How old are you?" "21." which Markdown interprets '21.' as a list and renumbers from 1, leading to: "How old are you?" "1." Another problem is that single linebreaks are ignored. Things like song lyrics and ASCII art get messed up, and some people even use single linebreaks for paragraphs. And ev…

I agree with this. In 90% if cases where it actually formats anything on reddit it basically gets it wrong in terms of the users intentions.

Re: Whats Wrong with Markdown

#32

Post by al2o3cr »

KrisAndrew wrote: post #25

I agree with the author in general. However, I would write an article about a more general and insidious fashion (fashion repeats itself). That fashion is "I hate typing" or, alternatively, "typing less makes me more productive." Guess what; it doesn't. Here's why. If you're using programming slang to make yourself more productive, then you're not programming. You're a boiler-plate code generator. Therefore you could…

""typing less makes me more productive." Guess what; it doesn't."

That statement may or may not be true, but its converse ("typing MORE makes me more productive") is nigh-certainly false.

Re: Whats Wrong with Markdown

#33

Post by adamhyde »

ahoge wrote: post #27
adamhyde wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think tho that Markdown hasnt won the plain text battle - plain text has. Only a very small percentage of plain text docs are markdown...so small it wouldn't even count...

Reddit, Stack Overflow, GitHub/BitBucket (readmes, tickets, wikis), and it's also used by a couple of CMSs, blog platforms, and static website generators. Virtually all of the text I write is Markdown. Even this very comment is written in a subset of Markdown (and so is yours).

Yes and notice how few have used it even here. Most replies are plain text.

Re: Whats Wrong with Markdown

#34

Post by npongratz »

russellbeattie wrote: post #13

The root problem here is that every HTML WYSIWIG editor (from MS Word to TinyMCE) uses their own special blend of tags when creating HTML. There's only a handful of tags that are generated by Markdown, the problem is that editors often don't use standard tags (e.g. ) or they try to do too much and enable every feature that exists in HTML. This causes an absolute mess where one editor can't really parse another's outp…

> ... none of us would have to remember if adding a link uses () or [] first again (I always get it backwards)

I also often forgot, until I read this paraphrased explanation [0]: when we write, we are much more likely to parenthesize than "bracketize" (as in this parenthetical), so the square brackets [] go first when making a link. This makes it easier for the parser.

[0] I read this in a comment on HN, but sadly I cannot find the comment, else I would give proper attribution.

Re: Whats Wrong with Markdown

#35

Post by KrisAndrew »

camillomiller wrote: post #26
KrisAndrew wrote: post #25

I agree with the author in general. However, I would write an article about a more general and insidious fashion (fashion repeats itself). That fashion is "I hate typing" or, alternatively, "typing less makes me more productive." Guess what; it doesn't. Here's why. If you're using programming slang to make yourself more productive, then you're not programming. You're a boiler-plate code generator. Therefore you could…

I think that the original post and your comment both miss the point in a big way. You are upset at all the people who use markdown and think they are coders . Do you really think such a sample of people exists? Where exactly? Nobody can say that with a serious face and anybody who's into learning markdown has at least enough knowledge to know that. Use case for markdown: when I build website (by hand, writing pure HT…

It's a critique, impassioned and curt albeit; and here's the most powerful metaphor you'll hear in regard to the topic of non-standardized formats.

Non-standardized formats/languages are the jive (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_jive_talk) of the development world. It sets you apart from the general population (of programmers) when you use it. It primarily effects obfuscated communication to a smaller group. The specific form of jive will fall out of fashion a few years after you learn it. There is very little value in committing it into your brain other than for 'funsies'.

(In regard to Markdown specifically: there are tons of WYSIWYG HTML editors out there. Use those and copy/paste the HTML text. It requires no learning at all. Markdown was pre-emptively made useless over a decade ago.)

Re: Whats Wrong with Markdown

#36

Post by ahoge »

adamhyde wrote: post #33
ahoge wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit, Stack Overflow, GitHub/BitBucket (readmes, tickets, wikis), and it's also used by a couple of CMSs, blog platforms, and static website generators. Virtually all of the text I write is Markdown. Even this very comment is written in a subset of Markdown (and so is yours).

Yes and notice how few have used it even here. Most replies are plain text.

Paragraphs and emphasis are frequently used here.

Re: Whats Wrong with Markdown

#38

Post by philgr »

He lost me in this paragraph:

> The original purpose of .MD is that it can be read without converting it to another format like HTML (...) .MD is designed not to be rendered for display, it is meant to be the display.

And this is the first paragraph from Markdown's introduction[1]:

> Markdown is a text-to-HTML conversion tool for web writers. Markdown allows you to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, then convert it to structurally valid XHTML (or HTML).

Keywords here: "for web writers" and "convert it". Let me say it again: this is the first paragraph you read when you look for Markdown.

[1]: http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/

Re: Whats Wrong with Markdown

#39

Post by adamhyde »

philgr wrote: post #38

He lost me in this paragraph: > The original purpose of .MD is that it can be read without converting it to another format like HTML (...) .MD is designed not to be rendered for display, it is meant to be the display. And this is the first paragraph from Markdown's introduction[1]: > Markdown is a text-to-HTML conversion tool for web writers. Markdown allows you to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain tex…

The link you are referring to is for a perl script to convert markdown to HTML. It is not markdown, the syntax, referred to in that article. You would have understood that if you read the next paragraph

"Thus, “Markdown” is two things: (1) a plain text formatting syntax; and (2) a software tool, written in Perl, that converts the plain text formatting to HTML. "

The article was about the former, your comment confused it with the later. Cheers.

Re: Whats Wrong with Markdown

#40

Post by adamhyde »

sic1 wrote: post #14

"You mad bro?" comes to mind. Successful rants provide solutions at the end. Otherwise, its just that, a rant that has no real meaning at all other than allowing you to vent - like this post. Feel better (I do).

Yip. Feel much better :)
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