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The author here! I'm kinda bummbed out that the post read as an ad. I was super nervous to publish this because it I knew I was poking at something that's near

by kmelve 5y ago

The author here! I'm kinda bummbed out that the post read as an ad. I was super nervous to publish this because it I knew I was poking at something that's near and dear to a lot of devs (myself included). But I have experienced enough friction with Markdown in the real world and wanted to explore poking what I see as the status quo. And it seems to have sparked some conversation, which was what I wanted. I'm truly not trying to “hawk” something, but I believe the thinking that went into Portable Text can provide value and I'm sort of putting it out there for people to make up their own minds. To your point: I agree, Markdown is for writers, but only for some writers. Maybe I didn't get that across, but it is kinda amazing that it has become so ubiquotos in all its shapes and colors. But it comes with these actual constrains and challenges that I feel a lot of developers aren't really being upfront or honest about. The simplicity comes with trade-offs that just adds complexity elsewhere. Either for people who don't desire to learn specialized syntax or developers who have to spend a lot of time figuring out how to parse it in a sensible manner to get their job done.

filmgirlcw 5y ago
Thanks for taking the time to engage. And I want to be clear, I think Portable Text could be something really excellent for it’s intended use case. I guess I just see that as fundamentally at odds with what Markdown is. I understand your point that Markdown is often used in place it probably shouldn’t be, but I still think we’re talking about two different problems. For me, it isn’t that something like Portable Text doesn’t have a place, it’s that I don’t think it is best compared to something like Markdown. I agree we should do a better job of showing what options are best for certain scenarios, but I feel like someone making a decision to adopt a really customized version of Markdown needs a different sort of intervention/push to a more desirable format (maybe Portable Text) than the people that actively choose Markdown BECAUSE it is a readable syntax for crafting HTML and their goal is to write HTML in a readable way.

by kmelve 5y ago

filmgirlcw 5y ago

Thanks for taking the time to engage. And I want to be clear, I think Portable Text could be something really excellent for it’s intended use case. I guess I just see that as fundamentally at odds with what Markdown is. I understand your point that Markdown is often used in place it probably shouldn’t be, but I still think we’re talking about two different problems. For me, it isn’t that something like Portable Text doesn’t have a place, it’s that I don’t think it is best compared to something like Markdown. I agree we should do a better job of showing what options are best for certain scenarios, but I feel like someone making a decision to adopt a really customized version of Markdown needs a different sort of intervention/push to a more desirable format (maybe Portable Text) than the people that actively choose Markdown BECAUSE it is a readable syntax for crafting HTML and their goal is to write HTML in a readable way.