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Usually, the colloquial conflation of Markdown with CommonMark and the numerous Markdown-esque dialects is helpful language, I've defended it here before. On t

Usually, the colloquial conflation of Markdown with CommonMark and the numerous Markdown-esque dialects is helpful language, I've defended it here before. On this question, it isn't. Markdown qua Markdown, unambiguously supports HTML tags. You can verify that yourself: https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/ https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/ The introduction being: > Markdown is a text-to-HTML conversion tool for web writers. Markdown allows you to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, then convert it to structurally valid XHTML (or HTML). It's not possible to read the original specification without agreeing that, yes, Markdown is specifically a way to generate HTML. It also has a nice syntax which has become popular in contexts where embedding HTML isn't a good idea, and there are some tools which allow Markdown to be converted to other formats as well (usually, but not always, these disallow most HTML tags, meaning that they aren't Markdown sensu stricto either). I would say that all of this supports Hillel's basic point here: Markdown is in fact tied to HTML semantics, in a way which makes it painful to do things with it which aren't tied to those semantics in the same way. Dialects in the Markdown family exist which make this less painful, and they do so by diverging from the original Markdown spec.

latexr 2y ago
> Markdown qua Markdown, unambiguously supports HTML tags. The section I quoted (and responded to) didn’t say “Markdown supports HTML tags”, it said (emphasis added) “Markdown parsers support (…)”. So unless you’re arguing that a tool cannot be considered a true Markdown parser¹ unless it parses HTML, the distinction is irrelevant. I wasn’t making a general argument, I was responding to a specific claim. > You can verify that yourself Yes, I am quite familiar with that subpar piece of code and specification. I have spent some time implementing a Markdown parser myself (the output wasn’t HTML) and Gruber’s resources were by far the worst. For various reasons he has been an awful steward of Markdown; its ubiquity is despite him, not because of. Forgive me if I don’t find the author to be the authoritative source anymore. ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
- travisjungroth 2y ago
  I think you’ve kinda lost the thread. From the top comment: > Markdown was designed… Surely Gruber is an authority on that. And anyway, “ markdown is a lightweight representation of html” is true enough that calling it “decidedly incorrect” is wrong. Certainly it’s not a point that’s supported by going to author intent.
  - latexr 2y ago
    > And anyway, “ markdown is a lightweight representation of html” is true enough that calling it “decidedly incorrect” is wrong. Yes, I completely agree with that. And that wasn’t the point I quoted or responded to. > From the top comment Again, I wasn’t replying to the top comment, I was replying to what I quoted, from the comment I replied to.

latexr 2y ago

> Markdown qua Markdown, unambiguously supports HTML tags. The section I quoted (and responded to) didn’t say “Markdown supports HTML tags”, it said (emphasis added) “Markdown parsers support (…)”. So unless you’re arguing that a tool cannot be considered a true Markdown parser¹ unless it parses HTML, the distinction is irrelevant. I wasn’t making a general argument, I was responding to a specific claim. > You can verify that yourself Yes, I am quite familiar with that subpar piece of code and specification. I have spent some time implementing a Markdown parser myself (the output wasn’t HTML) and Gruber’s resources were by far the worst. For various reasons he has been an awful steward of Markdown; its ubiquity is despite him, not because of. Forgive me if I don’t find the author to be the authoritative source anymore. ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

travisjungroth 2y ago
I think you’ve kinda lost the thread. From the top comment: > Markdown was designed… Surely Gruber is an authority on that. And anyway, “ markdown is a lightweight representation of html” is true enough that calling it “decidedly incorrect” is wrong. Certainly it’s not a point that’s supported by going to author intent.
- latexr 2y ago
  > And anyway, “ markdown is a lightweight representation of html” is true enough that calling it “decidedly incorrect” is wrong. Yes, I completely agree with that. And that wasn’t the point I quoted or responded to. > From the top comment Again, I wasn’t replying to the top comment, I was replying to what I quoted, from the comment I replied to.