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> I'm not sure who invented [fenced code blocks], but I definitely know that it is widely used because GitHub Flavored Markdown made it so and I am grateful for
by holman 7y ago
> I'm not sure who invented [fenced code blocks], but I definitely know that it is widely used because GitHub Flavored Markdown made it so and I am grateful for that.
I’m pretty sure Vicent Martí (@vmg) was the originator of them. I remember we spent a number of weeks internally at GitHub debating the syntax, since no one really fell in love with any of the proposals for various reasons. Eventually the triple tick won out and that’s worked out fairly well, I think.
- rapsey 7y agoMan I hate those ticks. I have no idea what arcane key combination on my keyboard I need to do to get them. Maybe it's easier on a US keyboard.
- adrianN 7y agoMy biggest problem with the ticks is that they're dead keys if you want to be able to write accented characters easily. I write à code sample` way too often.
- Freak_NL 7y agoYou could consider using the compose key instead of dead keys. Diacritic characters take a three-key chord instead of two ([compose ` a] instead of [` a]), but all programming characters type as-is. The right alt is usually chosen as compose key.
- AlchemistCamp 7y agoI'm not in the US and there's a single key that corresponds to a back-tick. In fact, it hasn't yet been an issue for me on keyboard layouts for four different languages (from three separate language families, no less)! Where is your keyboard from?
- CodesInChaos 7y agoGerman keyboards have both accent directions as a dead-key. So you have to press press shift+´ then space to get `. And that assumes you can remember which direction markdown wants.
- jeromegv 7y agoFrench Canadian keyboard definitely doesn’t make it easy.
- chrizel 7y agoIt’s very easy on the US keyboard: the key for ticks is under the escape key, no shift needed, just hit this single key. I’m German myself, but I use the US keyboard layout for more than 15 years now, because it is so much easier to type things like this... especially in tech. (And also keys for [, ], { and } are much better placed in the US layout)
- loeg 7y agoDo most Germans use QWERTZ?
- zeeZ 7y agoConsidering it's the default, even standard (DIN 2137:2018-12), I'd say yes most do.
- chrizel 7y agoYes, most people learn and use QWERTZ. In your typical electronics store, you will only find QWERTZ keyboards and notebooks. If you want QWERTY, you have only one option, you have to buy it on the internet. But even on the internet the typical Logitech keyboard for example is hard to find in US-QWERTY in Germany/Europe, because most merchants don‘t have them on stock. In the past, I‘ve even imported US keyboards from the US, because they were and are hard to find here. It gets even more difficult for notebooks: Any notebook you can buy here in Germany has QWERTZ. Want a notebook with US layout, because you are a developer? Your only options are BTO options from Apple or Lenovo. But even there, you have to be cautious: Dell for example will sell you „English“ keyboard layout notebooks as BTO option, but you won‘t get the real US layout (with a wide return and wide left shift key), but some kind of „International English“ ISO layout with a tall return key and a short left shift key... Lenovo has an „English“ option and thankfully you will get a keyboard layout that really resembles the US layout (but with an Euro key). Only Apple really gives you „US“ as BTO option, and you really get the real US layout. Funny story, I wrote an e-mail to Apple, over ten years ago, when they didn‘t have US layouts as BTO option in Germany... I think it changed something, because one or two years later, Apple changed it, and you will get real US layouts ever since on their online store.
- SkySkimmer 7y agoI always use triple tilde instead, ie ~~~language code ~~~ is the same as ```language code ``` (at least on github) Depending on your keyboard it might be easier to type.
- loeg 7y agoVery easy on a US keyboard. It's just the top-left key, directly adjacent to '1' and below Escape. No modifiers (shift, whatever) required.
- 1wd 7y agoWiki Creole in 2006 standardized many wiki engines on {{{ }}} code blocks. {{{#!python ...}}} for language or other extensions. All of OP's other points were also solved, at least in the most common implementation. Unfortunately people forgot about this IMO huge improvement.
- tomp 7y agoThe single biggest one-time leveling up I did as a programmer, was switching to a US keyboard. All the various symbols are just so much easier to type (except, of course, numbers should probably be shift-typed). You can still use your local keyboard for text...
- ProZsolt 7y agoI created my own keyboard. It based on the ISO English keyboard, but when I want to type Hungarian characters I just hit the Caps Lock (or alt if I only need one character), but every other character stays in the same space. I also moved the zero before one because I needed the space for the 9 extra characters. Coding on the Hungarian keyboard is a nightmare, I don't know how others can do it.
- dirkt 7y agoSame for me. I have a German physical keyboard using the US layout, but with left-alt + the keys where the normally umlauts are allowing me to type äüöÄÜÖß and additionally „“‚‘ quickly. But I've grown up learning programming on US-layout keyboards.
- Carpetsmoker 7y ago> numbers should probably be shift-typed I tried this for a week several years ago; it was not a success. Aside from all the muscle memory re-learning, I also found that I used the number more often than I had thought. What I do these days just make Vim abbreviations; for example 1= becomes !=, ;= becomes :=, etc.