Flat code block syntax

[Michel Fortin]

Le 2007-10-09 à 3:58, Lasar Liepins a écrit :


> Hello,

>

> Personally I'd hate to have to use tildes for code spans,

> since it would mean I'd have tp tyoe alt-n + space to get

> a single tilde.

> I'm not sure how this works on other keyboard layouts, I

> use a German keyboard. My short test with a US layout leads

> me to believe that it works the same, though.

> The same applies to backticks, by the way.


On my Canadian CSA keyboard they're not so hard to type (Opt-À for `  
and Opt-Ç for ~). I believe they're easy on US keyboards too. But I  
recognise it may not be practical for all users all around the world.

Here are our options:

1.  Use a character which can be typed easily from any keyboard.
     This may be hard to find, especially if we want the result to be
     pretty and not conflicting with the current sytnax.

2.  Make two syntaxes using different characters. Basically we'd be
     making sure all keyboards offer easy access to at least one of the
     marker characters, which is just easier.

     I'm not fond of creating two variants given that we're already
     designing an alternate syntax for an existing Markdown construct.
     Too much alternates can become confusing.

3.  Ignore the problem, stick with tilde alone. This obviously
     isn't optimal for everyone, but perhaps there is simply no
     solution that can be optimal for everyone.

As for other possibilites, here are a few alternates I've found by  
looking at my keyboard which would be usable (I think) within Markdown:

     !!!
     code
     !!!

     @@@
     code
     @@@

     %%%
     code
     %%%

Bruce Phillips' suggestion:

     :::
     code
     :::

And, again (for comparaison purpose), tilde:

     ~~~
     code
     ~~~

Any opinion? Should we look into non-ASCII characters too?

Personally, my preference still goes to tilde.


Michel Fortin
michel.fortin at michelf.com
http://michelf.com/