markdown considered harmful
Christoph Freitag
mail at christoph-freitag.de
Sat Nov 23 07:43:23 EST 2013
Thanks for that article, bowerbird, I found it quite entertaining.
Some thoughts:
* Fragmentation of Markdown specifications probably isn’t a great problem for most people because most texts are short-lived. They get written, converted, published (as a blog post or mail, such as this), read (maybe) and forgotten (by the readers and probably by their authors, too). No need to re-convert them later, when you are likely to be using another editor with another built-in flavor of Markdown. Most people will never actually be bitten in the butt.
* Most texts are also short-form. You pointed out that Markdown is optimized for these so, again, problems should be limited and easily corrected if need be later on. However, we do lack a simple and consistent light-wheigt markup system for long-form texts. I would like to play with zml — however, have you even published an app or some script?
* I tend to disagree on your opinion on split screens for input and output. I find it very distracting to see what my text will be rendered as while I try to concentrate on its structure and content. Also, since I care a lot about typography, too, seeing a — for the most part — preliminary and incomplete rendering of the final output immediately makes me want to work on the displaying rules (CSS, in most cases). Where’s that different from fiddling with styles in Word etc.?
* However, I do like the way some editors give me a hint of what the text will be like in the final output by way of syntax highlighting or semi-wysiwyg à la Byword or Writer. What is your take on those?
* Coming back to typography I think the bigger problem we face today is the _output_ of electronic texts. A good looking Kindle book, for example, has yet to be shown to me. Why can’t ebooks look as nice as printed books? (See an exception here: <http://practicaltypography.com>) Probably because html, epub, mobi and the like are not adequate? When writing some longer texts years ago I quite liked Tex. Wouldn’t it be possible for ebook readers to render TeX documents?
Keep up the good work!
– Christoph Freitag
Am 23.11.2013 um 01:26 schrieb markdown-discuss-request at six.pairlist.net:
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> Today's Topics:
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> 1. markdown considered harmful (bowerbird)
> 2. Re: commentaries about markdown considered harmful (Jason Davies)
> 3. RE: markdown considered harmful (Dennis E. Hamilton)
> 4. re: more harmful (bowerbird)
> 5. Re: more harmful (Jason Davies)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 13:52:05 -0500 (EST)
> From: bowerbird <bowerbird at aol.com>
> Subject: markdown considered harmful
> To: markdown-discuss at six.pairlist.net, Bowerbird at aol.com
> Message-ID: <8D0B5CB123D0C3B-1614-57F47 at webmail-d290.sysops.aol.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> i don't talk about people behind their back.
>
>> https://medium.com/the-future-of-publishing/495ccfe24a52
>
> -bowerbird
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 19:57:50 +0000
> From: Jason Davies <j.p.davies at ucl.ac.uk>
> Subject: Re: commentaries about markdown considered harmful
> To: Discussion related to Markdown.
> <markdown-discuss at six.pairlist.net>
> Message-ID: <D2F18E77-4879-444C-B820-A6C774D1D916 at ucl.ac.uk>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; Format="flowed"
>
> On 22 Nov 2013, at 18:52, bowerbird wrote:
>
>> i don't talk about people behind their back.
>>
>>
>>> https://medium.com/the-future-of-publishing/495ccfe24a52
>
> # Medium Version
>
> Not sure what your point is or can be, ultimately, beyond 'oh look, 15
> competing standards' http://xkcd.com/927/
>
> which is funny, sigh-inducing and normal. And certainly not a call to
> action (unless you don't get the infinite loop of it stirring you to
> action).
>
> and various observations:
>
> 1) LaTeX is often deprecated by publishers in favour of Word because of
> lowest common denominators (that's how bad it is: you write in TeX then
> convert to RTF.) You want *that* world to make sense about markdown?
> 2) For some reason, the world struggles on with Word, but then, the
> world tolerates all kind of things.
> 3) People will use whichever version of markdown they like and sometimes
> hit snags. On the whole they will find it useful.
> 4) If you want a developed nerdy version, we have multimarkdown (with
> honourable mentions to others on your page), which is good for us so we
> can do what we do. And if it doesn't, we discuss and sometimes we get or
> we get to know why not.
> 5) If Gruber had decided to develop markdown further, he would be stuck
> on a mailing list debating fine points about double spaces at the end of
> line to produce an extra bit of whitespace, or annoying people by
> refusing to export to LaTeX and there's a guy who's written a script
> that does it but Gruber just broke it fixing the problem with footnotes
> attached to links so the entire community is up in arms all 177 of them
> and the rest of the world is using that broken version
> ohmygodhowdotheycope and Gruber is up late, and some of the markdown
> afficianados are annoyed because someone is wrong on the internet
> (http://xkcd.com/386/) and daringfireball would have been fun, shame he
> stopped it because he was doing markdown, how is that going, what
> version is it at? Oh 5, cool, and he's talking about scripts to check
> dates automatically now but he's running very low on plain syntax so
> he's thinking of using unicode symbols but there's a row because even
> though you can get them easily on iPhones, you can't on Android so the
> fanbois of the word 'fanboi' are offended and also ...
>
> I like Gruber on daringfireball, personally. I suspect he does too.
>
> We have multimarkdown. That's cool. Thanks Fletcher. And free or dead
> cheap (Composer). I can do all kinds of things then export to LaTeX.
> Cool bananas!:) This is what I dreamed of in the 90s with my Palm Pilot
> and a keyboard.
>
>
> # Short Version.
>
> Yeah, true. <deletes email>
>
>
> --
> Dr Jason Davies
> http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucgajpd/Academic/
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 12:14:10 -0800
> From: "Dennis E. Hamilton" <dennis.hamilton at acm.org>
> Subject: RE: markdown considered harmful
> To: <markdown-discuss at six.pairlist.net>
> Cc: 'bowerbird' <bowerbird at aol.com>
> Message-ID: <006401cee7bf$68520aa0$38f61fe0$@acm.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> As a newcomer to this list, I must have missed what the message is about.
>
> I love that post. I'm extremely grateful for the categories and the analysis.
>
> I have my own itch for long-form and compound-organized markdowns for application to Literate Programming without the target-specific markup (i.e., neither TeX nor XML nor leaking HTML-isms).
>
> You may have saved me a ton of work. But one thing I do know: the format will have to be explicitly identifiable and versioned.
>
> Thanks for the great read.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: markdown-discuss-bounces at six.pairlist.net [mailto:markdown-discuss-bounces at six.pairlist.net] On Behalf Of bowerbird
> Sent: Friday, November 22, 2013 10:52
> To: markdown-discuss at six.pairlist.net; Bowerbird at aol.com
> Subject: markdown considered harmful
>
> i don't talk about people behind their back.
>
>> https://medium.com/the-future-of-publishing/495ccfe24a52
>
> -bowerbird
>
> _______________________________________________
> Markdown-Discuss mailing list
> Markdown-Discuss at six.pairlist.net
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/markdown-discuss
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 18:05:03 -0500 (EST)
> From: bowerbird <bowerbird at aol.com>
> Subject: re: more harmful
> To: markdown-discuss at six.pairlist.net, bowerbird at aol.com
> Message-ID: <8D0B5EE69218D37-1614-5A1E8 at webmail-d290.sysops.aol.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> dennis said:
>> As a newcomer to this list,
>> I must have missed what the message is about.
>
> you missed nothing, dennis. absolutely nothing.
>
> the message is about nothing. sheer nothing.
> nothing piled on nothing heaped over nothing.
> nothing done by countless individuals here,
> so let us not forget to thank them for the
> nothing which they so generously contributed.
>
> there are archives going back for years.
> if you read them, you will find nothing.
> nothing, and then much ado about nothing.
> post after post after post, about nothing.
> amounting to nothing. then more nothing.
>
> i wish there was something. i really do.
>
> there is nothing. nothing but nothing.
>
>
>> Thanks for the great read.
>
> you're welcome, dennis.
>
> ***
>
> jason said:
>> Not sure what your point is or can be, ultimately,
>> beyond 'oh look, 15 competing standards'
>
> 15 different "competing" standards is one thing...
>
> 15 different flavors, all called by the same name?
> that's quite another thing. at least in my opinion.
>
>
>> certainly not a call to action
>
> it wasn't a call to action. just a friendly advisory. :+)
>
>
>> If Gruber had decided to develop markdown further,
>> he would be stuck on a mailing list debating
>> fine points about double spaces at the end of line
>> to produce an extra bit of whitespace,
>> or annoying people by refusing to export to LaTeX
>> and there's a guy who's written a script that
>> does it but Gruber just broke it fixing
>> the problem with footnotes attached to links
>> so the entire community is up in arms
>> all 177 of them and the rest of the world is
>> using that broken version
>> ohmygodhowdotheycope and Gruber is up late,
>> and some of the markdown afficianados are annoyed
>> because someone is wrong on the internet
>> and daringfireball would have been fun,
>> shame he stopped it because he was doing markdown,
>> how is that going, what version is it at?
>> Oh 5,cool, and he's talking about
>> scripts to check dates automatically now
>> but he's running very low on plain syntax
>> so he's thinking of using unicode symbols
>> but there's a row because even though you can
>> get them easily on iPhones, you can't on Android
>> so the fanbois of the word 'fanboi' are offended
>> and also ...
>
> this made me laugh. seriously. because it's true!
>
> i might criticize gruber for staying out of all this,
> but i don't _blame_ him for taking such a course.
>
> it's damn hard to wrangle a community, especially
> one with such diverse, even contradictory, needs.
>
> gruber gave an example on terpstra's podcast that
> his workflow includes one author who's completely
> trusted, so he'd never have to sanitize his input,
> while github's workflow has tons of contributors,
> none of whom can be trusted enough that it could
> safely skip the need to sanitize all of their input.
> makes perfect sense they must operate differently.
>
> but there are several contentious issues which
> _could_ be resolved to the satisfaction of all
> -- coordination-type issues, where it doesn't
> matter which way something is done, as long as
> everyone agrees they'll do it the same way --
> if only there was someone to decide which way.
>
> gruber was the only such "someone" that all of
> the parties could agree on as decision-maker,
> but he decided instead to opt out of that role.
>
> to put it another way, nobody expected that
> gruber would be a "great man of the people".
> they didn't even _want_ that. they wanted
> a _dictator_ who made benevolent decisions
> that would benefit their markdown ecosystem.
>
> no one could _force_ him to take such a role.
>
> but since gruber shows _no_reluctance_ to
> take credit for markdown, i believe people
> had a right to expect that he would accept
> the responsibilities concomitant with that.
>
> moreover, i would think _he_ should see
> that -- if he doesn't perform that job --
> his baby will fail to achieve its full potential.
>
> and, following that same train of thought,
> i would think that the markdown developers
> -- after fully recognizing that gruber has
> opted out -- would take it upon themselves
> to resolve their differences, and swiftly,
> because the time will definitely come when
> they all hang separately at the same time.
>
> but they haven't made it happen. nothing!
>
> so i am now reluctantly shifting focus to
> warn the end-users that danger lies ahead.
> jump in the quicksand if you want, friends,
> but make sure that you take a rope with you.
>
> right here, though, going back to your funny
> recounting of "how things might have gone",
> we should remind ourselves that it is ironic
> that mr. gruber has been spending much time
> -- by his own admission -- on a notes app.
>
> and while i think we could legitimately ask
> whether all that time might have been spent
> more usefully solving issues with markdown,
> we'll also need to quickly acknowledge that
> his time is his, to do whatever he likes, plus
> his notes app has made him lots more money
> than any markdown work would've paid him.
> so society's message to him seems _clear_.
>
>
>> I like Gruber on daringfireball, personally.
>> I suspect he does too.
>
> so do i. it keeps him out of trouble. ;+)
>
>
>> Yeah, true. <deletes email>
>
> truth is a fantastic destination to arrive at.
>
> -bowerbird
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2013 00:26:29 +0000
> From: Jason Davies <j.p.davies at ucl.ac.uk>
> Subject: Re: more harmful
> To: Discussion related to Markdown.
> <markdown-discuss at six.pairlist.net>
> Message-ID: <81A1A736-A98B-4D94-B9FF-9442DD337DC0 at ucl.ac.uk>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; Format="flowed"
>
> On 22 Nov 2013, at 23:05, bowerbird wrote:
>
>> truth is a fantastic destination to arrive at.
>
> and a good place to start too. Enjoyed your response. I'm just enjoying
> Markdown (and I, with the help of a generous genius named Kino) used to
> have NisusWriter export everything as what looked suspiciously like
> Markdown/beta code to my Palm, then import it all back with italics and
> footnotes and so on, while I wrote my PhD in the 90s. The whole damned
> thing was written in markdown before it was invented.
>
> Shame Nisus coding broke when we went to OS X.
>
> So the hydra-like creature that is markdown is still a big, big
> improvement on, well, not having markdown. Ironically (given it was
> Gruber, who also used to help me out on the BBEdit list before
> daringfireball was ever invented so I liked him before many of you:)),
> it's the fragmented Android of the mark-up world.
>
> --
> Dr Jason Davies
> http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucgajpd/Academic/
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