5 ms·

> There are also other markup-languages, which use other established syntax from the old times. Would you care to share some examples? I'm genuinely interested

by akavel 5y ago

> There are also other markup-languages, which use other established syntax from the old times. Would you care to share some examples? I'm genuinely interested, while nothing obvious that would fit this description comes to my mind.

slightwinder 5y ago
AsciiDoc, reStructuredText, textile, org-mode, they all have to some degree such syntax. Or just read old usenet-archives, FAQs and such. It's natural to do it if your aim is to be lightweight and readable. You just happen to use the elements you have at hand. And people did that, wrote all kind of texts and documents in ascii with made-up syntax on the spot, for usenet, e-mail, ftp-servers, etc. It's hard to say that something started here or there, if the path to it is so short.
- masklinn 5y ago
  More generally, markdown is but one (if the most successful) of the “lightweight markup languages” (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightweight_markup_language https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightweight_markup_language). Most of them have fallen into disuse following the ascendency of markdown, but anyone who was on the internet in the mid-aughts will remember textile and creole, they were major contenders in the CMS and wiki space respectively (IIRC).
- akavel 5y ago
  Ah, I thought we're talking typewriter-old times. Yes, sure, I do remember the proliferation of weird wiki syntaxes, and I also remember seeing markdown as a breath of fresh air in its readability and intuitiveness. I do believe the same as the poster before me, that markdown is the closest among them to what could be seen either in typewriting, or on usenet. Asciidoc and rst have some of it, but break the illusion by introducing too much weirdness (see esp. the syntax for links and lists in both of them). Until proven otherwise, I can't believe those happening on usenet and not being ridiculed.
  - cycomanic 5y ago
    I would argue that rst is much closer to how things were done with typewriters. One example: I can not think of one document written on a typewriter that indicated a heading with #, but just a brief search for typewriter document images will get you ones with "--" underlines as headings. For me that is actually still the biggest difference between rst and Markdown, and I still think underlines look much more like headings, but I also find # much easier to write
    - halostatue 5y ago
      Remember that Markdown supports both SETEXT (# header, ## header, ### header) and ATX (header\n======, header\n------) headers. I prefer SETEXT headers for writing since you can use all the supported hX levels, but if all you need is h1 and h2, then ATX headers are usable.
lpointal 5y ago
DocBook…

by akavel 5y ago

slightwinder 5y ago

AsciiDoc, reStructuredText, textile, org-mode, they all have to some degree such syntax. Or just read old usenet-archives, FAQs and such. It's natural to do it if your aim is to be lightweight and readable. You just happen to use the elements you have at hand. And people did that, wrote all kind of texts and documents in ascii with made-up syntax on the spot, for usenet, e-mail, ftp-servers, etc. It's hard to say that something started here or there, if the path to it is so short.

masklinn 5y ago
More generally, markdown is but one (if the most successful) of the “lightweight markup languages” (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightweight_markup_language https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightweight_markup_language). Most of them have fallen into disuse following the ascendency of markdown, but anyone who was on the internet in the mid-aughts will remember textile and creole, they were major contenders in the CMS and wiki space respectively (IIRC).
akavel 5y ago
Ah, I thought we're talking typewriter-old times. Yes, sure, I do remember the proliferation of weird wiki syntaxes, and I also remember seeing markdown as a breath of fresh air in its readability and intuitiveness. I do believe the same as the poster before me, that markdown is the closest among them to what could be seen either in typewriting, or on usenet. Asciidoc and rst have some of it, but break the illusion by introducing too much weirdness (see esp. the syntax for links and lists in both of them). Until proven otherwise, I can't believe those happening on usenet and not being ridiculed.
- cycomanic 5y ago
  I would argue that rst is much closer to how things were done with typewriters. One example: I can not think of one document written on a typewriter that indicated a heading with #, but just a brief search for typewriter document images will get you ones with "--" underlines as headings. For me that is actually still the biggest difference between rst and Markdown, and I still think underlines look much more like headings, but I also find # much easier to write
  - halostatue 5y ago
    Remember that Markdown supports both SETEXT (# header, ## header, ### header) and ATX (header\n======, header\n------) headers. I prefer SETEXT headers for writing since you can use all the supported hX levels, but if all you need is h1 and h2, then ATX headers are usable.

lpointal 5y ago

DocBook…