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AsciiDoc has a serious adoption problem compared to MarkDown.

vog 9y ago
Why is that? Given the comparatively low quality of Markdown (as a language), isn't GitHub the only reason why Markdown gets pushed so much? If GitHub chose AsciiDoc instead of Markdown as their base, we would be in a better position now.
- kbenson 9y ago
  > Given the comparatively low quality of Markdown (as a language) Markdown stresses ease of readability. I don't find the language low quality at all, just limited. Limited isn't necessarily bad, depending on its purpose. > isn't GitHub the only reason why Markdown gets pushed so much? Reddit's use seems to significantly predate Github, and I would say reaches a far greater audience. Unique users visiting in April 2017 is 1.285 billion[1]. Some fraction of that is probably unique people (given anonymous desktop and mobile usage), but given how large the number is, I imagine it's still a very large number. > If GitHub chose AsciiDoc instead of Markdown as their base, we would be in a better position now. I agree that Github would be in a better place now, but I don't think that would really have changed anything for anyone else. Even if you want to make a case that Github would have influenced programmers who would have then used it in other projects, I think you need to account for Stack Overflow also. I think it was arguably much more popular and used by a far wider audience than Github for a long time (and may still be, I'm not sure). Markdown was used widely because it was simple, and users would actually bother to learn and remember the very few options they had. People are more used to it now, and at this point, sure, they might accept something more complex (especially if it built on the rules they already internalized), but I don't think we can blindly assume they would have accepted something more complex. 1: https://www.statista.com/statistics/443332/reddit-monthly-visitors/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/443332/reddit-monthly-vi... Edit: s/Unique IPs/Unique users/
  - fao_ 9y ago
    You act as if AsciiDoc is difficult to learn. It seems mostly equivalent to Markdown, just nicer in a lot of small ways
    - kbenson 9y ago
      AsciiDoc is much more complex, in that it supports many more things. Check out the user guide[1]. Markdown takes a couple paragraphs to describe. You can know everything there is to know about using markdown within a couple minutes at most. 1: http://asciidoc.org/userguide.html http://asciidoc.org/userguide.html
      - vog 9y ago
        Isn't that comparison unfair, given that AsciiDoc gives you more functionality in a curated whole? Nobody forces you do use all of them. If you just want to use AsciiDoc as "Markdown with more coherent syntax", stick to a small subset that is equally trivial to learn. And if you need more, AsciiDoc's comprehensive user guide is a huge advantage. In Markdown, you'll have to look around for all kinds of forks. And god forbid if you want to use two additional features that were not designed to work together in the first place. Compare this with AsciiDoc's clear extension system where you can hook up everything and it won't interfere with each other.
        kbenson 9y ago
        > Isn't that comparison unfair, given that AsciiDoc gives you more functionality in a curated whole? I don't see how it's unfair. I think AsciiDoc is much more complex, by just about any metric you want to use. I'm not saying it's necessarily worse by many metrics, just that by the particular metric of getting average people to use it, and not just a random subset of it, Markdown's simplicity is beneficial. > Nobody forces you do use all of them. No, but for random internet user there's a real trade-off between what you're trying to accomplish and what it takes to accomplish it, when you're just trying to write a simple comment. Reddit has a link that says "formatting help" below the comment box, and when you click it, it shows every option you have for special formatting with examples in a table with nine rows and two columns, including the header. They could have chosen AsciiDoc, but then they would have to make a decision about what features to elevate to the quick help and which not to, and very possibly which to disallow for their use case. Markdown is simple for users to use, simple for user to understand, simple for developers to implement, and simple for developers to decide about. That simplicity is both why it was adopted by developers and why users bothered to learn and use it. As I alluded to before, AsciiDoc may have been a better choice in the end, but I don't think it's quite as simple as AsciiDoc does more stuff, so it's better. It's all about the trade-offs, and there's been plenty of discussion on that[1] before, from both sides. 1: Just google "worse is better".
- jhbadger 9y ago
  Markdown is also what RStudio uses for markup of comments in notebooks, so it is very common in the bioinformatics and statistics worlds.
  - ferdterguson 9y ago
    Same in Python Juypter Notebooks. I wish I could use rst though. I have to google it every once in awhile to remind myself that they won't support it (https://github.com/ipython/ipython/issues/888#issuecomment-2809462 https://github.com/ipython/ipython/issues/888#issuecomment-2...)

vog 9y ago

Why is that? Given the comparatively low quality of Markdown (as a language), isn't GitHub the only reason why Markdown gets pushed so much? If GitHub chose AsciiDoc instead of Markdown as their base, we would be in a better position now.

kbenson 9y ago
> Given the comparatively low quality of Markdown (as a language) Markdown stresses ease of readability. I don't find the language low quality at all, just limited. Limited isn't necessarily bad, depending on its purpose. > isn't GitHub the only reason why Markdown gets pushed so much? Reddit's use seems to significantly predate Github, and I would say reaches a far greater audience. Unique users visiting in April 2017 is 1.285 billion[1]. Some fraction of that is probably unique people (given anonymous desktop and mobile usage), but given how large the number is, I imagine it's still a very large number. > If GitHub chose AsciiDoc instead of Markdown as their base, we would be in a better position now. I agree that Github would be in a better place now, but I don't think that would really have changed anything for anyone else. Even if you want to make a case that Github would have influenced programmers who would have then used it in other projects, I think you need to account for Stack Overflow also. I think it was arguably much more popular and used by a far wider audience than Github for a long time (and may still be, I'm not sure). Markdown was used widely because it was simple, and users would actually bother to learn and remember the very few options they had. People are more used to it now, and at this point, sure, they might accept something more complex (especially if it built on the rules they already internalized), but I don't think we can blindly assume they would have accepted something more complex. 1: https://www.statista.com/statistics/443332/reddit-monthly-visitors/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/443332/reddit-monthly-vi... Edit: s/Unique IPs/Unique users/
- fao_ 9y ago
  You act as if AsciiDoc is difficult to learn. It seems mostly equivalent to Markdown, just nicer in a lot of small ways
  - kbenson 9y ago
    AsciiDoc is much more complex, in that it supports many more things. Check out the user guide[1]. Markdown takes a couple paragraphs to describe. You can know everything there is to know about using markdown within a couple minutes at most. 1: http://asciidoc.org/userguide.html http://asciidoc.org/userguide.html
    - vog 9y ago
      Isn't that comparison unfair, given that AsciiDoc gives you more functionality in a curated whole? Nobody forces you do use all of them. If you just want to use AsciiDoc as "Markdown with more coherent syntax", stick to a small subset that is equally trivial to learn. And if you need more, AsciiDoc's comprehensive user guide is a huge advantage. In Markdown, you'll have to look around for all kinds of forks. And god forbid if you want to use two additional features that were not designed to work together in the first place. Compare this with AsciiDoc's clear extension system where you can hook up everything and it won't interfere with each other.
      - kbenson 9y ago
        > Isn't that comparison unfair, given that AsciiDoc gives you more functionality in a curated whole? I don't see how it's unfair. I think AsciiDoc is much more complex, by just about any metric you want to use. I'm not saying it's necessarily worse by many metrics, just that by the particular metric of getting average people to use it, and not just a random subset of it, Markdown's simplicity is beneficial. > Nobody forces you do use all of them. No, but for random internet user there's a real trade-off between what you're trying to accomplish and what it takes to accomplish it, when you're just trying to write a simple comment. Reddit has a link that says "formatting help" below the comment box, and when you click it, it shows every option you have for special formatting with examples in a table with nine rows and two columns, including the header. They could have chosen AsciiDoc, but then they would have to make a decision about what features to elevate to the quick help and which not to, and very possibly which to disallow for their use case. Markdown is simple for users to use, simple for user to understand, simple for developers to implement, and simple for developers to decide about. That simplicity is both why it was adopted by developers and why users bothered to learn and use it. As I alluded to before, AsciiDoc may have been a better choice in the end, but I don't think it's quite as simple as AsciiDoc does more stuff, so it's better. It's all about the trade-offs, and there's been plenty of discussion on that[1] before, from both sides. 1: Just google "worse is better".
jhbadger 9y ago
Markdown is also what RStudio uses for markup of comments in notebooks, so it is very common in the bioinformatics and statistics worlds.
- ferdterguson 9y ago
  Same in Python Juypter Notebooks. I wish I could use rst though. I have to google it every once in awhile to remind myself that they won't support it (https://github.com/ipython/ipython/issues/888#issuecomment-2809462 https://github.com/ipython/ipython/issues/888#issuecomment-2...)