forking Markdown.pl?

[Michel Fortin]

Le 2008-02-28 à 18:04, Yuri Takhteyev a écrit :


> I am sure Markdown.pm will make life much simpler for those using

> Markdown with Perl.  As a maintainer of a markdown module in a

> different language, however, I am not as excited about the idea of a

> new "official" implementation.


Same here.


> ...  And if Markdown.pm keeps evolving (which it should), does

> this mean that we would now be on the hook for diffing Markdown.pm

> code daily to find out what new features has become official?


That's how I've been keeping in sync with Markdown.pl while it was  
updated (diffing each release). This is practical only when the code  
is kept pretty similar, as in PHP Markdown vs. Markdown.pl.


> Note that I am not against the new features in Markdown Extra.  I  

> added

> some of them in markdown.py and I would add more or even all if we

> could agree to make them official.  But I want to implement them

> against a spec, not against a perl module.  I also think some of those

> features should be discussed first.


Hum, while it's difficult to spec Markdown because its author doesn't  
seem so much interested, I think creating a spec for Markdown Extra is  
possible. I could host it on my website, alongside PHP Markdown Extra,  
and I could change PHP Markdown Extra to fit that spec. It'll take  
some time to write though, and I'm not sure in what form the grammar  
should be expressed, but I suppose it could be done.


> Perhaps there is a need for a better _perl_ implementation (or a few,

> competition is fun), but as far as "official" goes, we need a

> comprehensive and up-to-date spec and a test suite against which all

> implementations could be measured.


I'm maintaining MDTest for that. If anyone wants a new test case to be  
added to MDTest, I'll gladly accept it. If anyone wants to dispute one  
of MDTest's expected result, I'm open to discussion, preferably on  
this list so that everybody can take part.

Although it's lacking its proper web page, MDTest and its download  
location have been previously announced on this list. Here are a few  
interesting links about MDTest:

  -  First version announcement:
     <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/markdown-discuss/2007-July/000674.html 
 >
  -  Latest release announcement:
     <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/markdown-discuss/2007-September/000815.html 
 >
  -  Download link for latest release:
     <http://michelf.com/docs/projets/mdtest-1.1.zip>
  -  GIT repository:
     <http://git.michelf.com/mdtest>


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