Markdown is a reduced instruction set language, as its very name indicates. It's therefore a poor choice for documents that need the structures and control over display that it does not provide. Having to use it to address needs it does not support would make me angry, too. But that's not a problem with Markdown. It's a problem with forcing its use on projects for which it is an inappropriate tool.
I write books and articles using Markdown more or less for the same reasons I use a fountain pen to write on paper: I like the way it feels. It gets me closer to a sense that it's just me and the words I'm writing. That's really about it. And obviously that's not an argument why anyone else should use it. For the sort of work I do, I don't need tables, equations, or even graphics. I do need endnotes, which are slightly clunky in Markdown. So I use a Keyboard Maestro macro that inserts the markup, lets me type in the content, places the endnote at the end of the document, and returns me to the endnote's insertion point. I also sometimes use centered asterisks as intra-section dividers, but Markdown -- not being presentation markup -- doesn't know about centering. So I use a bit of HTML for that, also inserted via a macro. If I needed a lot more, I'd give up on Markdown and perhaps go back to writing in HTML. In truth, I am also a bit more favorably disposed toward Markdown because my late and dearly missed friend Aaron Swartz was a contributor to its development. His fingerprints remain on much that is good about the Internet. On Wednesday, October 18, 2017 at 8:12:05 AM UTC-4, Dave wrote: > > Unfortunately, it is becoming a de-facto standard. For example, github > README files will only be displayed on a project page if they are in > markdown. It has a totally non-semantic syntax, which makes nearly > impossible for many, like me, to learn it; since the characters it uses are > often part of the content, certain content can't be represented without > complicated escapes, and some can't be represented at all; its HTML > repertoire is severely limited, for example, some implementations allow > tables, but not if you need cells to span multiple columns or rows; > implementations vary widely, which not only adds to the learning curve but > also limits what you can express where. When a presentation language places > limits on what you can express, forcing you to dumb down your message, and > learning it, including its limitations and idiosyncratic implementations, > takes a huge investment in time for something that was intended to save > time, those are pretty good reasons for hating it. > > On Tuesday, October 17, 2017 at 8:55:22 PM UTC-4, Lewis Butler wrote: >> >> On 11 Oct 2017, at 13:49, Gregory Shenaut <greg.s...@me.com> wrote: >> > I hate Markdown in all its varieties and manifestations >> >> OK, I’ve resisted commenting on this for nearly a week now, but I find >> this statement extremely odd. >> >> I can’t understand why anyone would hate markdown. I mean, I can see not >> using it, but since all it is is a quick way to write something that will >> become HTML without littering your text with HTML I don’t understand how it >> could possibly enrage anyone to the level of hatred. >> >> A markdown file is perfectly readable to someone who has never heard of >> markdown, which is a huge advantage over most formats for text files. It’s >> portable, the interpreter for it is dead-simple, and it’s widely supported. >> >> And I say all of this as someone who very rarely uses markdown. >> >> -- >> Apple broke AppleScripting signatures in Mail.app, so no random >> signatures. >> >> -- This is the BBEdit Talk public discussion group. If you have a feature request or would like to report a problem, please email "supp...@barebones.com" rather than posting to the group. Follow @bbedit on Twitter: <http://www.twitter.com/bbedit> --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "BBEdit Talk" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bbedit+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to bbedit@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/bbedit.
