5 ms·

Hot take: Markdown was nice back in the day when in-browser editors sucked for the most part and we just wanted to get things done and didn't mind the little bi

by emrah 2y ago

Hot take: Markdown was nice back in the day when in-browser editors sucked for the most part and we just wanted to get things done and didn't mind the little bit of noise it adds to content. It was an act of satisfysing. In 2024 though, there is no need to have to deal with markdown. There are decent editors that are far nicer to use which support rich text without the need to see past the markdown noise. Any company serious enough with their app should invest in creating/using a rich text editor

Kichererbsen 2y ago
Except a lot of people (like myself) really dislike rich text as a format. Doesn't really play nicely with git. When was the last time you wrote rich text by hand?
- emrah 2y ago
  Yes i suspect as much, especially on here but it is a biased sample here :-)
jillesvangurp 2y ago
Depends. Most developers tend to prefer markup over rich editors. Any application aimed at developers should probably be markdown first.
kilolima 2y ago
Do you have use the mouse to use rich text? If so then no thanks.
- burrish 2y ago
  Well most rich-text have the common shortcuts tho, like ctrl + b to put text in bold.
  - beardedwizard 2y ago
    But the way that is represented in the file format isn't standard, which means it may not be interoperable.
- burmanm 2y ago
  We've even had word processors for over 40 years, why would we suddenly need mouse support to write rich text? Editing rich text without mouse has always been a thing, Markdown isn't something that suddenly created some fancy new rich text without mouse experience.
  - beardedwizard 2y ago
    It obviates the need because it is not rich text.
- emrah 2y ago
  Yep i use the mouse and I'm very fast with it. I bet I'm faster with it than you are with your keyboard ;-)
  - kilolima 2y ago
    It's not the speed, it's saving the carpal tunnel for video games... :)
innocenat 2y ago
You called it "markdown noise". I called it "easy to see if I actually bolded the whole word or I forgot to bold the last character" or "easy to see if I also underlined the space after the word".
microflash 2y ago
In 2024, markdown gives me interoperability between different applications and editors. The interop between rich text editors is not so good.
- slightwinder 2y ago
  Is there even real interoperability outside the basic syntax? There are so many flavors of Markdown with different extensions and probably incompatibilities...
  - theshrike79 2y ago
    Most Markdown extensions are just code blocks with fancy stuff. They're not pretty when viewed in plain text, but easy to ignore.
    - slightwinder 2y ago
      There are also tables, different link-types, lists-enhancements, how html is handled in different context.. Yesterday(?) I even saw a flavor adding LaTeX-like functions. Markdown is a very wild garden of different options.
dspillett 2y ago
> Hot take: Markdown was nice back in the day when in-browser editors sucked I don't think markdown came from that at all. It gets used that way a lot, but the point for me (and IIRC the point of it from the start) is that the format is just plain text that can be up-sampled to something a bit prettier where desired. It can be edited by hand, it can be understood by eye in its pure form, it isn't as verbose as other text-only options¹ meaning it doesn't distract from the content as much², it can be edited/viewed anywhere plain text can, etc. It wasn't intended for web-based editors, web-based editors just started using it because it was preferable to them than other options at the time (HTML, BBCode, …). -------- [1] including HTML and anything XML based [2] yes, this makes it less expressive than other options³, but that is often a compromise worth making [3] I'm thinking of looking at AsciiDoc, which predates MD and for the basics is very similar but supports much more, for my own scrawlings (nothing currently published), but TBH once I get beyond basic MD I'll probably want to be more opinionated (and disagree with existing opinions!) so will likely end up making my own MarkDown+ and tool to pretty it up.

by emrah 2y ago

Kichererbsen 2y ago

Except a lot of people (like myself) really dislike rich text as a format. Doesn't really play nicely with git. When was the last time you wrote rich text by hand?

emrah 2y ago
Yes i suspect as much, especially on here but it is a biased sample here :-)

jillesvangurp 2y ago

Depends. Most developers tend to prefer markup over rich editors. Any application aimed at developers should probably be markdown first.

kilolima 2y ago

Do you have use the mouse to use rich text? If so then no thanks.

burrish 2y ago
Well most rich-text have the common shortcuts tho, like ctrl + b to put text in bold.
- beardedwizard 2y ago
  But the way that is represented in the file format isn't standard, which means it may not be interoperable.
burmanm 2y ago
We've even had word processors for over 40 years, why would we suddenly need mouse support to write rich text? Editing rich text without mouse has always been a thing, Markdown isn't something that suddenly created some fancy new rich text without mouse experience.
- beardedwizard 2y ago
  It obviates the need because it is not rich text.
emrah 2y ago
Yep i use the mouse and I'm very fast with it. I bet I'm faster with it than you are with your keyboard ;-)
- kilolima 2y ago
  It's not the speed, it's saving the carpal tunnel for video games... :)

innocenat 2y ago

You called it "markdown noise". I called it "easy to see if I actually bolded the whole word or I forgot to bold the last character" or "easy to see if I also underlined the space after the word".

microflash 2y ago

In 2024, markdown gives me interoperability between different applications and editors. The interop between rich text editors is not so good.

slightwinder 2y ago
Is there even real interoperability outside the basic syntax? There are so many flavors of Markdown with different extensions and probably incompatibilities...
- theshrike79 2y ago
  Most Markdown extensions are just code blocks with fancy stuff. They're not pretty when viewed in plain text, but easy to ignore.
  - slightwinder 2y ago
    There are also tables, different link-types, lists-enhancements, how html is handled in different context.. Yesterday(?) I even saw a flavor adding LaTeX-like functions. Markdown is a very wild garden of different options.

dspillett 2y ago

> Hot take: Markdown was nice back in the day when in-browser editors sucked I don't think markdown came from that at all. It gets used that way a lot, but the point for me (and IIRC the point of it from the start) is that the format is just plain text that can be up-sampled to something a bit prettier where desired. It can be edited by hand, it can be understood by eye in its pure form, it isn't as verbose as other text-only options¹ meaning it doesn't distract from the content as much², it can be edited/viewed anywhere plain text can, etc. It wasn't intended for web-based editors, web-based editors just started using it because it was preferable to them than other options at the time (HTML, BBCode, …). -------- [1] including HTML and anything XML based [2] yes, this makes it less expressive than other options³, but that is often a compromise worth making [3] I'm thinking of looking at AsciiDoc, which predates MD and for the basics is very similar but supports much more, for my own scrawlings (nothing currently published), but TBH once I get beyond basic MD I'll probably want to be more opinionated (and disagree with existing opinions!) so will likely end up making my own MarkDown+ and tool to pretty it up.