No way to indent text?

[Tom Humiston]

On 5 Aug 2009, at 5:47 AM, Joseph Lorenzo Hall wrote:


> This isn't something done in standard HTML, so Markdown doesn't do it


That's right. More specifically, HTML is for indicating structure,  
while CSS is for presentation. Font, colors, indentation and the like  
are all presentational.

While it's true that a text marked up with HTML but *no* CSS will  
still show up with an amount of presentational styling -- spaces  
between paragraphs, headings larger and bold, bullets in front of list  
items, etc. -- this is simply because the typical browser has a  
default CSS style sheet built in, for handling elements that have no  
additional styling.

One of the benefits of Markdown ignoring block-level HTML is that it  
allows you to insert class and id names, and even complete style  
rules, within your HTML tags, so you can take advantage of CSS.

If I may digress: Markdown observes an important principle of usable  
design: It does what most of its users, most of the time, want. This  
stands opposite what programmers -- for natural reasons -- *think*  
that people want, which is to handle edge cases. Most subscribers of  
this list are programmers, and I applaud those who hold to the vision  
of Markdown's design and, despite temptation, subordinate all  
programming concerns to that.

For an excellent discussion of programming and usable design, see Alan  
Cooper's [The Inmates Are Running the Asylum][1].

[1]: http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780672326141-0