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Why Markdown Is Not My Favourite Language (2012)

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Re: Why Markdown Is Not My Favourite Language (2012)

#91

Post by microtonal »

jamessb wrote: post #71
ams6110 wrote: post #8

I don't like any of them. Markdown, ReST, various wiki/forum dialects of "simplified" text formatting. They are all as complicated if not more complicated than just writing HTML. They all have a bunch of rules and special cases. I'd rather just write in HTML which I already know. I don't understand the motivation for any of these "alternative" markup formats. Normal non-technical people want Word (or at least, some k…

Not all markdown text is written with the intention of being converted to HTML. Pandoc can convert markdown to .pdf (via LaTeX), .doc, a slide-deck (using either LaTeX-Beamer or one the HTML presentation tools) etc. Compared to LaTeX, markdown markup is less obtrusive: a single asterisk/double asterisk/double backtick interrupts the flow of text less than an \emph{} or \textbf{} or \textit{}. Since there's less noise…

Compared to LaTeX, markdown markup is less obtrusive:

Indeed, I use pandoc for making LaTeX beamer presentations and it generally provides the goodness of Markdown and LaTeX combined. Slides can be made far more quickly than in LaTeX. E.g.

    # Some section slide

    ## Slide title

    * Bullet point one
    * Some math: $a^2 + b^2 = c^2$
At the same time, one can e.g. immediately insert fragments of TikZ using the relevant \begin{...} \end{...} block and it just works.

Re: Why Markdown Is Not My Favourite Language (2012)

#92

Post by rtpg »

johnchristopher wrote: post #72
leoc wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's intended to be interpreted by computers, what's the point in avoiding precision? All a fuzzy specification does is make it probable that those interpretations will be mutually inconsistent and/or unintuitive and problematic and/or prone to crashes and security failures.

> If it's intended to be interpreted by computers, what's the point in avoiding precision? Because markdown is for humans first and foremost, not computers. It can't be clearer than that.

that is disingenuous considering that Markdown the spec is offered alongside markdown.pl.

If it's intended for humans first and foremost, then why offer the transpiler? After all, it already looks like ASCII e-mail. The overriding directive is human-readability, not unparsability (which do not go hand in hand).

Re: Why Markdown Is Not My Favourite Language (2012)

#93

Post by BerislavLopac »

Retra wrote: post #74
BerislavLopac wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I meant a "markup language". And you're right -- Markdown is not "a means of communicating information"; it's a script that converts one form of information to another.

Markdown isn't a means of communicating information?

Only partially. Technically, it is simply a conversion mechanism that converts one form of formatted text (the "Markdown" syntax) to another (HTML). Now, since the original format has never been formally specified, instead only being loosely defined by years of practice in email and Usenet messages, Gruber had to specify some constraints for his script to follow, but this is far from a standard.

If we assume there is a standard, it's not called "Markdown", as Gruber heavily opposes that. On the other hand I'll agree that, if we extend the meaning of the term "Markdown" to cover a stantard like CommonMark, in that case yes, Markdown is a means of communicating relatively minor elements of information -- such as emphasis or lists -- as any other markup language.

Re: Why Markdown Is Not My Favourite Language (2012)

#94

Post by insertnickname »

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #25
ams6110 wrote: post #8

I don't like any of them. Markdown, ReST, various wiki/forum dialects of "simplified" text formatting. They are all as complicated if not more complicated than just writing HTML. They all have a bunch of rules and special cases. I'd rather just write in HTML which I already know. I don't understand the motivation for any of these "alternative" markup formats. Normal non-technical people want Word (or at least, some k…

So much this. Normal non-technical people understand that you click a bold 'B' and you get bold text, you click an italic 'I' and you get italic text, you click a little list icon and you get a list, and so on. contenteditable has its quirks, sure, but modern browsers mean it's no longer the brainmelt it once was. Real WYSIWYG entry is achievable and almost easy. Markdown has one great usecase (producing documents th…

Non-technical people learned WYSIWYG and they can learn something else too.

Re: Why Markdown Is Not My Favourite Language (2012)

#95

Post by buster »

aidenn0 wrote: post #84
buster wrote: post #37

This article is great. I really never understood the preference of Markdown over rST. Also, little do people know that github supports rst https://github.com/github/markup But looks like Creole as well, which i didn't know :)

As far as I can tell the only advantage rST has over markdown is that it's better defined. I rarely find that I prefer the rST syntax to markdown.

I frequently write documentation with sphinx, over 30 pages long. rST is a blessing for me. Markdown doesn't even get near.

It's fine for some 20 line README on github but that's about it.

Re: Why Markdown Is Not My Favourite Language (2012)

#96

Post by aidenn0 »

buster wrote: post #95
aidenn0 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell the only advantage rST has over markdown is that it's better defined. I rarely find that I prefer the rST syntax to markdown.

I frequently write documentation with sphinx, over 30 pages long. rST is a blessing for me. Markdown doesn't even get near. It's fine for some 20 line README on github but that's about it.

I'm with you there in that I couldn't imagine writing 30 pages of markdown. For something like extensive documentation, I could imagine rST winning, particularly since there is a standard syntax for extending it.

I still mostly use LaTeX for documentation though.

Re: Why Markdown Is Not My Favourite Language (2012)

#97

Post by rizalp »

insertnickname wrote: post #94
Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So much this. Normal non-technical people understand that you click a bold 'B' and you get bold text, you click an italic 'I' and you get italic text, you click a little list icon and you get a list, and so on. contenteditable has its quirks, sure, but modern browsers mean it's no longer the brainmelt it once was. Real WYSIWYG entry is achievable and almost easy. Markdown has one great usecase (producing documents th…

Non-technical people learned WYSIWYG and they can learn something else too.

1. Users don't have the manual, and if they did, they wouldn't read it.

2. In fact, users can't read anything, and if they could, they wouldn't want to.

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000062....

Re: Why Markdown Is Not My Favourite Language (2012)

#98

Post by buster »

aidenn0 wrote: post #96
buster wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I frequently write documentation with sphinx, over 30 pages long. rST is a blessing for me. Markdown doesn't even get near. It's fine for some 20 line README on github but that's about it.

I'm with you there in that I couldn't imagine writing 30 pages of markdown. For something like extensive documentation, I could imagine rST winning, particularly since there is a standard syntax for extending it. I still mostly use LaTeX for documentation though.

You should give sphinx + latex a try. I have my own cookiecutter template for docs and it's never been easier and fast to write some good looking documents.

Re: Why Markdown Is Not My Favourite Language (2012)

#99

Post by cogburnd02 »

JetSpiegel wrote: post #67
cogburnd02 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do; of all the lightweight markup languages, it seems like only txt2tags has a sane representation of HTML links. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightweight_markup_language#Lin...

Ugh, that's the syntax of TVTropes. What a mess, I never know if the title comes before or after the link, and whether to wrap with 1 or 2 square braces.

[ @JetSpiegel ] Challenge:

(1) write an 8-page (or more) document with 32 (or more) hyperlinks in it in both txt2tags and any other format.

(2) Print out the plain-ASCII source files.

(3) Wait until you forget the whole text of what you've written.

(4) Re-read it (both versions) somewhere without access to a computer/phone/tablet. (e.g. the bathroom)

You will understand why txt2tags makes more sense:

(1) Less markup [i.e. fewer characters] than Markdown, Textile/Texy, AFT, reST

(2) Text-first, unlike AsciiDoc, MediaWiki, PmWiki, Org-Mode, BBCode. Text-first leads to better/easier readability of source ASCII IM(NSH)O.

(3) Unlike POD, has a syntax for named links.

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