Markdown is plaintext, because of e-mail, which works best as plaintext. A plaintext format is much easier to write consistently, without issues like invisible

Markdown is plaintext, because of e-mail, which works best as plaintext. A plaintext format is much easier to write consistently, without issues like invisible formatting [0] (which will bite you when editing), or Microsoft Word’s decision to make your ordered-list markers bold because some part of the previous line or this line is bold (and I’m almost convinced the algorithm for that is closely linked to rand()). [0]: https://xkcd.com/2109/ https://xkcd.com/2109/