I also was not around when the current syntax was proposed, but I personally find the caret very intuitive due to its association with superscripts. I immediately connected the two upon first seeing it, and have never had to check a reference for that little tidbit again. Now, I suppose if one has never seen the caret represent a superscript in other contexts, it may not be quite as clear. Even so, the caret looks much like an up-arrow, so why not?
On Feb 8, 2008 7:10 AM, Michel Fortin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Le 2008-02-08 à 2:26, Richard Taytor a écrit : > > > I searched the list but didn't find an answer to this question. > > > > Why is the caret[^c] preferred over the asterisk[*a] for footnote > > markers? > > > > [^c]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caret > > [*a]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterisk > > I'm not the one who came up with the syntax in the first place, but I > think it's clearer to use a new character rather than overloading the > asterisk with yet another meaning. Also, to me at least, ^ evokes the > exponentiation operator which is represented as superscript in > mathematics, which in turn could make me think of a superscript > footnote marker. > > > Michel Fortin > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://michelf.com/ > > > > _______________________________________________ > Markdown-Discuss mailing list > [email protected] > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/markdown-discuss > -- ---- Waylan Limberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ Markdown-Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/markdown-discuss
