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> The argument is that Markdown is bad because there is no standard for those implementations to adhere to, so they end up being wildly incompatible. This argu

> The argument is that Markdown is bad because there is no standard for those implementations to adhere to, so they end up being wildly incompatible. This argument is valid, but… > An example is that in Reddit's markdown; this text: [snipped] will all end up as inline code, with all the newlines and extra whitespace stripped out. This does not validate the argument. Implementations defer to John Gruber’s Markdown Syntax Documentation.[1] It is insufficient to be used as a standard (hence your argument being valid), but does (in some cases) provide a common subset of features compatible everywhere. The “fenced” code block is not included in Gruber’s original Markdown, but became so popular due to GitHub that people come to expect it. It is still not part of “Standard Markdown” though. [1]: https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax

lucideer 8y ago
Furthermore, GFM* has fast become a defacto standard for newer implementations—still a bit of incompatibility, but improving. * GFM = Github Flavoured Markdown, even if Gitlab have very cheekily taken on the same initialism for their (in fairness, highly compatible) flavour.
- xemdetia 8y ago
  Has anyone found a good GFM to HTML converter that does not call out to a SaaS service (often GitHub)? I keep ending up in use cases where I need to do this conversion or do a live preview without having the data leave the box. When I was looking around previously I found out that under the hood they were using the GitHub API to actually do the preview.
  - theandrewbailey 8y ago
    I've used marked for years, and it doesn't make any network calls. In fact, it looks like it does tons of regex. https://github.com/markedjs/marked https://github.com/markedjs/marked
tokyodude 8y ago
there are lots of other issues. AFAICT HTML is allowed inline in markdown but the flowing inline HTML is interpretted differently depending on implementation some markdown text <div> some **inline** text </div> some more markdown text some will take that as one block. some will process each line separately. some will convert the asterisks ...
- laumars 8y ago
  HTML inlined into markdown is easily my least favourite feature of markdown. In my opinion it breaks the very point of of MD (namely that it's formatting makes as much sense in a graphical render as it does in a plain text editor).

lucideer 8y ago

Furthermore, GFM* has fast become a defacto standard for newer implementations—still a bit of incompatibility, but improving. * GFM = Github Flavoured Markdown, even if Gitlab have very cheekily taken on the same initialism for their (in fairness, highly compatible) flavour.

xemdetia 8y ago
Has anyone found a good GFM to HTML converter that does not call out to a SaaS service (often GitHub)? I keep ending up in use cases where I need to do this conversion or do a live preview without having the data leave the box. When I was looking around previously I found out that under the hood they were using the GitHub API to actually do the preview.
- theandrewbailey 8y ago
  I've used marked for years, and it doesn't make any network calls. In fact, it looks like it does tons of regex. https://github.com/markedjs/marked https://github.com/markedjs/marked

tokyodude 8y ago

there are lots of other issues. AFAICT HTML is allowed inline in markdown but the flowing inline HTML is interpretted differently depending on implementation some markdown text <div> some **inline** text </div> some more markdown text some will take that as one block. some will process each line separately. some will convert the asterisks ...

laumars 8y ago
HTML inlined into markdown is easily my least favourite feature of markdown. In my opinion it breaks the very point of of MD (namely that it's formatting makes as much sense in a graphical render as it does in a plain text editor).