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The "easy-to-read [...] plain text format" indicates to me that the idea was that markdown should be readable in plaintext form too. The ability to convert it
by daptaq 5y ago
The "easy-to-read [...] plain text format" indicates to me that the idea was that markdown should be readable in plaintext form too. The ability to convert it to HTML is a different goal?
- Jtsummers 5y agoMaybe? My point, though, is that from day 1 it was meant to be rendered as HTML. So what Github does with it (rendering README.md files) is perfectly compatible with that original intent. Just like everyone who used md->html renderers for their blogs or whatever other content. If you just want plaintext, then you don't need markdown or any other markup. Just a plaintext file, like, I don't know, a README file. Don't throw .md (or .org in my case) on it, and it won't get rendered.
- daptaq 5y agoRendering has HTML isn't really the issue, imo. The question is rather how readable the source remains, when you foget to fold lines, insert too many images without alt texts, intersperse regular HTML, etc.
- laumars 5y ago> Maybe? My point, though, is that from day 1 it was meant to be rendered as HTML. No, from day 1 it was meant to be readable as plain text and optionally rendered as HTML Nobody is disputing that a key requirement of MD is to be machine parseable. What you’re missing is that another key requirement is for it to be human readable in plain text because it needs to be readable even when it hasn’t been rendered. Ie the rendering is an optional step but the format has to support one’s choice whether to render.