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> There haven't been dozens of different doodads grafted on at different times in different fashions to confuse users and converters Oh, but there have. For in
by Ajedi32 10y ago
> There haven't been dozens of different doodads grafted on at different times in different fashions to confuse users and converters
Oh, but there have. For instance, code fences are not part of the original markdown spec, but are commonly supported in just about every implementation out there, and are rendered in about [7 different ways][1] depending on which converter you're using.
Play around for a little in BabelMark and you'll see why a standard is needed.
[1]: http://johnmacfarlane.net/babelmark2/?normalize=1&text=%60%60%60%0Acode+here%0A%60%60%60 http://johnmacfarlane.net/babelmark2/?normalize=1&text=%60%6...
- jessaustin 10y agoWell that's one doodad, and apparently it has had the effect I predicted. Never mind, go ahead and have fun with your new super-markdown. One rather doubts it will displace actual markdown anytime soon.
- Ajedi32 10y agoThat's exactly the problem: there is no "actual Markdown". Just a bunch of mutually incompatible competing implementations. If something like CommonMark had existed from the beginning, we wouldn't have this issue because everyone would be following the standard.
- marssaxman 10y agoWhat is a "code fence"?
- Ajedi32 10y agoIt's an alternate way of annotating code blocks which doesn't require you to indent every line (because that can be tedious for longer code snippets), and allows you to explicitly specify the language to use for syntax highlighting. Example: ```javascript // JavaScript code here ``` It's used extensively on GitHub.
- marssaxman 10y agoThanks. I've seen that but hadn't connected the name to the syntax.