4 ms·

Right, but then you have to explain to end-users why they need to escape an asterisk, or why they have to have their content on screen twice -- once in source a

Right, but then you have to explain to end-users why they need to escape an asterisk, or why they have to have their content on screen twice -- once in source and once in frustratingly flickering preview. Personally I think it is our job as web developers not to encourage this for end users. (Unless those end users are writing a book, in which case, definitely. Markdown as a source for Pandoc is fabulously better than a wordprocessor)

civilized 5y ago
Users can avoid having to escape the asterisk by using Microsoft Word. It seems to me that you expect some perfect solution to exist, and it is this solution that technologists should make it their mission to find. I think there is no perfect solution and we should navigate the trade-offs holistically, rather than focusing on a single imperfection like suboptimal asterisks.
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  > It seems to me that you expect some perfect solution to exist First, I don't mean in the Microsoft Word scenario, really (where I think that for very many applications, especially most books and most documentation, it's a very good tool). I mean on the web. If you're putting markdown in front of end users on the web, or even content contributors on the web, you're failing. Second, you're putting words into my mouth when you talk about a perfect solution because I said no such thing. I clearly said better solution. The absence of a perfect solution does not make Markdown equally as good as other possibilities. (For example, I believe that if you had to deploy a text-only editor to web-based end-users, Asciidoc is a more appropriate solution, even if I also accept it has lost the war)
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
dash2 5y ago
I write academic articles and like to use markdown for that, but you soon run into limitations that require non-standard tools. Precisely formatted tables… citations… line numbering… page numbering… inline maths… image placement… none are part of basic markdown. Outputting nice text is a big complex job, as the existence of TeX (ugh) shows.
- Falkon1313 5y ago
  True, different tools for different jobs. That brings back repressed memories of the painful experience when a client came in with a Quark file (desktop publishing) that they wanted converted into a website. Getting the data out was difficult enough, actually formatting it and trying to replicate the layouts and styles and all was a nightmare. (This was back in the IE 5/6 days, btw - none of the modern CSS niceties.) Just because you can do something (in desktop publishing software or otherwise) doesn't mean you should, and certainly doesn't mean a document optimized for print is good for the web.

civilized 5y ago

Users can avoid having to escape the asterisk by using Microsoft Word. It seems to me that you expect some perfect solution to exist, and it is this solution that technologists should make it their mission to find. I think there is no perfect solution and we should navigate the trade-offs holistically, rather than focusing on a single imperfection like suboptimal asterisks.

unfocussed_mike 5y ago
> It seems to me that you expect some perfect solution to exist First, I don't mean in the Microsoft Word scenario, really (where I think that for very many applications, especially most books and most documentation, it's a very good tool). I mean on the web. If you're putting markdown in front of end users on the web, or even content contributors on the web, you're failing. Second, you're putting words into my mouth when you talk about a perfect solution because I said no such thing. I clearly said better solution. The absence of a perfect solution does not make Markdown equally as good as other possibilities. (For example, I believe that if you had to deploy a text-only editor to web-based end-users, Asciidoc is a more appropriate solution, even if I also accept it has lost the war)
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

dash2 5y ago

I write academic articles and like to use markdown for that, but you soon run into limitations that require non-standard tools. Precisely formatted tables… citations… line numbering… page numbering… inline maths… image placement… none are part of basic markdown. Outputting nice text is a big complex job, as the existence of TeX (ugh) shows.

Falkon1313 5y ago
True, different tools for different jobs. That brings back repressed memories of the painful experience when a client came in with a Quark file (desktop publishing) that they wanted converted into a website. Getting the data out was difficult enough, actually formatting it and trying to replicate the layouts and styles and all was a nightmare. (This was back in the IE 5/6 days, btw - none of the modern CSS niceties.) Just because you can do something (in desktop publishing software or otherwise) doesn't mean you should, and certainly doesn't mean a document optimized for print is good for the web.