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If it is worth keeping, save it in Markdown

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Re: If it is worth keeping, save it in Markdown

#191

Post by ozim »

josephg wrote: post #127
darkteflon wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would add tables to that. Obsidian has some nice extensions to make working with tables easier, but it always feels janky.

Markdown is also missing: - Diagrams - Math - Any custom blocks - like Figures, algorithms, image boxes, etc - Numbered chapters / sections (Eg Chapter 1, Appendix A, etc). - Semantic references For readmes, thats fine I guess. But I miss all those features when I'm writing proper blog posts, articles and documentation. There are various hacky workarounds. But as soon as you start using bespoke markdown extensions, y…

Markdown should not do diagrams/math etc.

People just started doing all kinds of extensions and for me that’s silly.

Re: If it is worth keeping, save it in Markdown

#192

Post by SirHumphrey »

kreelman wrote: post #53

Hmmm. I see the use in this... For me, everything swirls in an enjoyable vortex towards org-mode. - Literate Programming, tangle/weave - Export to DocX, PDF, HTML - Org-Roam - Time Management. Several things mentioned above are day to day. I think spectacular things are often made up of collections of useful everyday things.

Org was designed for being a PKM-like system. Markdown was designed for README.md. It doesn't mean that you cant use either for the other task, but Obsidian for example had to modify markdown significantly, to add support for tags, math, etc.

It's just a shame that org format works really well only in emacs.

Re: If it is worth keeping, save it in Markdown

#193

Post by josephg »

ozim wrote: post #191
josephg wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Markdown is also missing: - Diagrams - Math - Any custom blocks - like Figures, algorithms, image boxes, etc - Numbered chapters / sections (Eg Chapter 1, Appendix A, etc). - Semantic references For readmes, thats fine I guess. But I miss all those features when I'm writing proper blog posts, articles and documentation. There are various hacky workarounds. But as soon as you start using bespoke markdown extensions, y…

Markdown should not do diagrams/math etc. People just started doing all kinds of extensions and for me that’s silly.

> Markdown should not do diagrams/math etc.

Fine. But in that case, markdown is the wrong tool for blogging and documentation. I want to write rich and interesting content. Markdown is anaemic.

Re: If it is worth keeping, save it in Markdown

#194

Post by tmountain »

tengwar2 wrote: post #44

The other major alternative to consider is RTF. I standardised on that about 10y ago, planning for a 30y horizon. It is a more complex format than Markdown, still text-based, but biased towards WYSIWYG presentation and editing, while Markdown is usually not WYSIWYG in the editor. Both formats suffer from a lack of standardisation, though Markdown seems to have more problems in practice - I've never had an issue cause…

I’m glad you found something that works for you, but it’s barely a text format from my vantage point. Parsing it is downright user hostile.

Re: If it is worth keeping, save it in Markdown

#195

Post by immibis »

tmountain wrote: post #194
tengwar2 wrote: post #44

The other major alternative to consider is RTF. I standardised on that about 10y ago, planning for a 30y horizon. It is a more complex format than Markdown, still text-based, but biased towards WYSIWYG presentation and editing, while Markdown is usually not WYSIWYG in the editor. Both formats suffer from a lack of standardisation, though Markdown seems to have more problems in practice - I've never had an issue cause…

I’m glad you found something that works for you, but it’s barely a text format from my vantage point. Parsing it is downright user hostile.

Parsing Markdown is downright everything-hostile. Computers and humans alike.

Re: If it is worth keeping, save it in Markdown

#196

Post by immibis »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #186
david422 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When writing in text mode so that you can see what you are generating. Wouldn't really need it the other direction though.

Isn't the point of Markdown that you don't need to 'see what you are generating', you can just read it? I write Markdown every day, but I do it in a plaintext editor (with syntax highlighting). I have a keyboard shortcut to view a preview in my browser, but I don't see a great need to be viewing that preview all the time.

I think the point of Markdown is to signal that you're someone who uses things like Markdown.

Re: If it is worth keeping, save it in Markdown

#197

Post by extinctpotato »

jon_richards wrote: post #36

The killer app for markdown would be a collaborative editor that displays the raw markdown and formatted markdown side-by-side and makes both sides editable. Tech people can use `#` and `*` on one side for formatting, product people can use normal text-editor buttons like "header1", "italics", etc.

You might appreciate this: https://antmicro.github.io/myst-editor/

Re: If it is worth keeping, save it in Markdown

#198

Post by sevensor »

immibis wrote: post #195
tmountain wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m glad you found something that works for you, but it’s barely a text format from my vantage point. Parsing it is downright user hostile.

Parsing Markdown is downright everything-hostile. Computers and humans alike.

Markdown is an attempt to codify formatting conventions that were already long in use for newsgroups and email. It’s meant to be human readable first and only incidentally convertible to actual markup. If semantics are a mess and nobody can agree on how you lay out a table, I’m kind of ok with that. Plain text is the presentation format, and if you want precise conversion, drop some raw HTML or LaTeX in there. LaTeX especially has a long history of being dropped into emails between people who needed to talk about math.

Re: If it is worth keeping, save it in Markdown

#199

Post by tqwhite »

tengwar2 wrote: post #44

The other major alternative to consider is RTF. I standardised on that about 10y ago, planning for a 30y horizon. It is a more complex format than Markdown, still text-based, but biased towards WYSIWYG presentation and editing, while Markdown is usually not WYSIWYG in the editor. Both formats suffer from a lack of standardisation, though Markdown seems to have more problems in practice - I've never had an issue cause…

I also prefer RTF. I have tried to live with markdown's limitations several times. I simply cannot.

It is standard enough but I really, really wish static websites would support it. The fact that it won't creates a huge split in my universe.

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