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Huh? Markdown was created in 2004: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown The tools you invoke, which predate Markdo

Huh? Markdown was created in 2004: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown The tools you invoke, which predate Markdown considerably, and mentioning 1970s don’t make sense in that light.

geerlingguy 5y ago
I think the point may have been more that conventions like asterisks or dashes for bulleted lists, angle brackets for quoting, etc. were already heavily used conventions predating markdown, the specification.
eadmund 5y ago
You write: > Huh? Markdown was created in 2004 … Did you read OP? > > It didn't start when it was named and mapped to HTML. Markdown is a formalisation of conventions which were in common in email & news long before HTML even existed.
- magpi3 5y ago
  Yes, but the point of Markdown is mapping those conventions to HTML. The mapping was the new thing that made it Markdown.
apocalyptic0n3 5y ago
Anecdotal, but I was using many of the same formatting conventions on early IM and message board platforms in the late 90s/early 00s, even when they didn't actually do any formatting in the program. That's long before the introduction of Markdown. Markdown was an attempt to take all of those community-accepted formatting conventions and standardize it into a single format. If I still had access to any of my messages from those plaintext messaging days and fed them through a Markdown renderer, they would look remarkably similar to what I had meant to say at the time. Anecdotal to the second degree: my mom saw me typing in the format at the time and remarked that she had learned to use similar formatting when she learned the typewriter in the 70s (coincidentally, she taught me to type on that very same typewriter). Is it identical to what it was in the 70s? I don't know for sure, but I doubt it. Is it similar enough that someone versed in Markdown can read the 70s typewriter formats and vice versa? Most likely.
- nieve 5y ago
  Those ways of styling were firmly enough established that a lot of people thought Markdown was violating them by having asterisks render as italic instead of bold. Italic was represented with slashes!
  - omaranto 5y ago
    Emacs' Org mode gets this right.

geerlingguy 5y ago

I think the point may have been more that conventions like asterisks or dashes for bulleted lists, angle brackets for quoting, etc. were already heavily used conventions predating markdown, the specification.

eadmund 5y ago

You write: > Huh? Markdown was created in 2004 … Did you read OP? > > It didn't start when it was named and mapped to HTML. Markdown is a formalisation of conventions which were in common in email & news long before HTML even existed.

magpi3 5y ago
Yes, but the point of Markdown is mapping those conventions to HTML. The mapping was the new thing that made it Markdown.

apocalyptic0n3 5y ago

Anecdotal, but I was using many of the same formatting conventions on early IM and message board platforms in the late 90s/early 00s, even when they didn't actually do any formatting in the program. That's long before the introduction of Markdown. Markdown was an attempt to take all of those community-accepted formatting conventions and standardize it into a single format. If I still had access to any of my messages from those plaintext messaging days and fed them through a Markdown renderer, they would look remarkably similar to what I had meant to say at the time. Anecdotal to the second degree: my mom saw me typing in the format at the time and remarked that she had learned to use similar formatting when she learned the typewriter in the 70s (coincidentally, she taught me to type on that very same typewriter). Is it identical to what it was in the 70s? I don't know for sure, but I doubt it. Is it similar enough that someone versed in Markdown can read the 70s typewriter formats and vice versa? Most likely.

nieve 5y ago
Those ways of styling were firmly enough established that a lot of people thought Markdown was violating them by having asterisks render as italic instead of bold. Italic was represented with slashes!
- omaranto 5y ago
  Emacs' Org mode gets this right.