Thanks for your well considered comments Dr.Drang, I will take them on board along with all the others.
Simon On Fri, May 13, 2011 at 2:33 AM, Dr. Drang <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm late to the party, but I do use tables in Markdown quite often, so… > > Apart from the complexity of implementation, Fletcher's point about > monospaced and proportional fonts is the main objection to the > proposed syntax. I always use monospaced fonts, but not everyone does, > and Markdown is meant to accommodate everyone. > > Michel's point about editing tables is also spot-on and ties into the > monospaced/proportional problem. Frankly, getting the proper alignment > when writing a table for the first time, even when using a monospaced > font, is a pain in the ass. Maintaining alignment when editing is even > harder—your example of adding a full line to one of the columns covers > only the simplest case. > > The great thing about Michel's table syntax is that it allows you to > avoid these annoyances. You can align the columns if you want, but > you're not forced to. I happen to prefer aligned columns, which is why > I wrote this little script, > > http://www.leancrew.com/all-this/2008/08/tables-for-markdown-and-textmate/ > > to do the alignment for me. But that's done outside of Markdown > itself; it's just a way of satisfying my anal retentiveness, not a > prescription for others. > > Also, I'd like to address your use of rules within the table. Markdown > generates straight HTML—styles are left to the user's CSS. By adding > features that put borders in the table, you're inserting styles into > Markdown itself, which I think is a mistake. > > Let me end by saying that I've always thought John was wrong not to > include a provision for tables in Markdown, and Michel's syntax > probably can be improved, so I welcome this discussion. But if tables > are to be included they should be simple, in keeping with Markdown's > overall approach. Markdown is not intended to handle every situation, > just the most common ones. The table formatting you've presented is > far more complex than the formatting Markdown does in other areas and, > I would argue, is beyond what Markdown should do. > > Regards, > Dr. Drang > _______________________________________________ > Markdown-Discuss mailing list > [email protected] > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/markdown-discuss >
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