On 04 Dec 2007, at 16:29, Thomas Nichols wrote:
I've been using the ~~~ syntax for marking code blocks for a few
weeks,
and it's certainly an improvement over the existing four-space indent.
However, it can be difficult to see at a glance where one code block
begins and another ends, as in the following example:
some normal text
~~~~
some code
~~~~
some more code... no, wait...
~~~~
now *this* is code
~~~~
and this ... errrr ...
~~~~
You get the idea. This mostly becomes a problem when writing technical
docs with frequent chunks of embedded code, and the solution would
appear to be to have different markup for begin-block and end-block.
This is the approach that the Trac wiki syntax takes, using
{{{
chunk of code here
}}}
Is there any enthusiasm are doing something similar for the proposed
Markdown extension syntax? Or will this cause conflicts (for example,
with Maruku's metadata syntax, or maybe with Pandoc)? I'm not too
concerned about the specific characters selected; perhaps
{~~~~
code
~~~~}
or
<~~~~
code
~~~~>
might cause fewer conflicts but remain easy to read.
Does anyone else feel that separate begin-block and end-block markers
would, in this rather special case where it is expected that the
content
will be output verbatim, be an improvement?
A specialized extension to Markdown that I've added in the
Solar_Markdown implementation looks like this:
{{code:
code
goes
here
}}
Having separate open/close markers has been helpful, esp. when
combined with the fact that we retain the indenting -- it sets off
nicely from the rest of the document. In addition, we have the
ability to define what kind of code is represented as part of the
opening marker ...
{{code: php
...
}}
{{code: sql
...
}}
{{code: bash
...
}}
... and apply the correct code-colorization (if desired) when rendering.
Hope this is useful feedback.
--
Paul M. Jones <http://paul-m-jones.com>
Solar: Simple Object Library and Application Repository
for PHP5. <http://solarphp.com>
Join the Solar community wiki! <http://solarphp.org>
Savant: The simple, elegant, and powerful solution for
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