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Question regarding terminology: is Org-Mode (or markdown etc.) "markup"? I thought the term "markup" comes from the ability to mark-up body text with formatting

Question regarding terminology: is Org-Mode (or markdown etc.) "markup"? I thought the term "markup" comes from the ability to mark-up body text with formatting instructions, as in SGML (and thus HTML and XML). I thought it's the reason why markdown is named as it is, eg. as in "non-markup". In a generalized markup (SGML) context, markdown would be called a "wiki syntax" since SGML can parse wiki syntax into eg. HTML using short references and tag inference rules, but common use of the term may have changed from the narrower SGML definition. [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markup_language https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markup_language

sillysaurus3 9y ago
Sure. Writing: - foo Is the same as writing: <node type="list-item">foo</node> It can be parsed identically. If you just parse it into a hash table, like {type: "list-item", value: "foo"}, then all of this becomes a non-issue. It's an intermediate format, so you can take that hash table and write it out as either of the above. You could even transpile org text into HTML and vice-versa.
Sharlin 9y ago
What else is Markdown but body test marked with formatting instructions? Surely it doesn't matter whether emphasis is marked with asterisks or <em> tags?
- red_admiral 9y ago
  It does once you need to make a numbered list where some items contain multiple paragraphs, others bulleted sub-lists, yet others images and code blocks. I'm not saying that's the best way to write a document but sometimes "port this word document to ${markup_language} for our new intranet wiki" comes from higher up and you can't question it. The <ul> tag has one great benefit: you know exactly where the list ends, namely at the </ul> tag. Your pointy-haired boss wants a list 5 levels deep where the second paragraph of item 2.4.1 needs to be at the third level of indentation, but the second paragraph of 3.1.6 needs to be indented only twice because it belongs to the 3.1 item? With opening and closing tags you make the tree structure explicit. Edge cases like this are exactly why there are six flavours of markdown (that and egoism on its creators' part) and in some of them, getting the indentation exactly as required doesn't seem to be possible at all without chucking in HTML tags.
  - sillysaurus3 9y ago
    Your pointy-haired boss wants a list 5 levels deep where the second paragraph of item 2.4.1 needs to be at the third level of indentation, but the second paragraph of 3.1.6 needs to be indented only twice because it belongs to the 3.1 item? FWIW Emacs solves this with text properties. You can attach a property list to any arbitrary character. For better or worse, org mode has no such equivalent.

sillysaurus3 9y ago

Sure. Writing: - foo Is the same as writing: <node type="list-item">foo</node> It can be parsed identically. If you just parse it into a hash table, like {type: "list-item", value: "foo"}, then all of this becomes a non-issue. It's an intermediate format, so you can take that hash table and write it out as either of the above. You could even transpile org text into HTML and vice-versa.

Sharlin 9y ago

What else is Markdown but body test marked with formatting instructions? Surely it doesn't matter whether emphasis is marked with asterisks or <em> tags?

red_admiral 9y ago
It does once you need to make a numbered list where some items contain multiple paragraphs, others bulleted sub-lists, yet others images and code blocks. I'm not saying that's the best way to write a document but sometimes "port this word document to ${markup_language} for our new intranet wiki" comes from higher up and you can't question it. The <ul> tag has one great benefit: you know exactly where the list ends, namely at the </ul> tag. Your pointy-haired boss wants a list 5 levels deep where the second paragraph of item 2.4.1 needs to be at the third level of indentation, but the second paragraph of 3.1.6 needs to be indented only twice because it belongs to the 3.1 item? With opening and closing tags you make the tree structure explicit. Edge cases like this are exactly why there are six flavours of markdown (that and egoism on its creators' part) and in some of them, getting the indentation exactly as required doesn't seem to be possible at all without chucking in HTML tags.
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  Your pointy-haired boss wants a list 5 levels deep where the second paragraph of item 2.4.1 needs to be at the third level of indentation, but the second paragraph of 3.1.6 needs to be indented only twice because it belongs to the 3.1 item? FWIW Emacs solves this with text properties. You can attach a property list to any arbitrary character. For better or worse, org mode has no such equivalent.