5 ms·

Thanks! But then why not just use plain text? Because of the lack of widely-available, lightweight Markdown readers, everyone just ends up reading the text with

Thanks! But then why not just use plain text? Because of the lack of widely-available, lightweight Markdown readers, everyone just ends up reading the text with a bunch of codes in it. It's just... dumb.

epistasis 1y ago
Markdown is plain text, so using Markdown is using plain text. What is your alternative to Markdown here?
- DidYaWipe 1y ago
  That's just playing dumb. It's only "plain text" in that it's non-binary. It contains formatting codes that aren't part of the informative content. If everyone's just using a plain-text reader to view these files, then why clutter them up with formatting codes?
  - epistasis 1y ago
    I'm not "playing dumb" it's basically exactly the type of text I would type in my notes before it was codified. Headers, bullets, bold, italic, all would have fit in perfectly in text-based Usenet groups of the 90s. It's not "clutter" it's meaningful information for the human eye in plain text. Which is why I'm asking: what's your alternative? Is it no headers, no lists, no standard * or \_ for emphasis, as it has been done long before Markdown existed?
  - DidYaWipe 1y ago
    Except that they aren't shown as bullets, headers, or bold unless your viewer understands the Markdown codes that invoke those decorations. Which is what I'm decrying the lack of. My "alternative" is to have DEDICATED, lightweight Markdown viewers. The major OSes have long come with a simple text-file viewer that can render RTF. Why not Markdown? In the meantime, I'm mystified as to why the format is so rampant when there is so little support for it.
    - jonp888 1y ago
      The whole point of Markdown is that the formatting codes intutitively make sense and are readable even without a viewer and without needing to read a specification first. People have been using asterisks as bullet points and to emphasise things long before anyone came up with Markdown. Maybe it doesn't to you, but it does to most people. An update to Microsoft Notepad which renders Markdown is currently being rolled out: https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2025/05/30/text-formatting-in-notepad-begin-rolling-out-to-windows-insiders/ https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2025/05/30/text-fo...
      - DidYaWipe 1y ago
        Well, that's nice about Notepad. I'm not sure I agree *something* is intuitive for italic and **something else** is intuitive for bold, or that this is intuitively a block quote: > #### The quarterly results look great! > > - Revenue was off the chart. > - Profits were higher than ever. > > Everything is going according to *plan*.
        allarm 1y ago
        ">" was the quotation symbol used by email clients for decades. See mutt, elm.
        DidYaWipe 1y ago
        Yep, sure was.
        jen20 1y ago
        Typically, italic formatting indicates gentle emphasis, bold formatting indicates strong emphasis. Given this, * and * make sense. However, typically people use _ for gentle emphasis in Markdown, which makes _even more_ sense. Be careful not to confuse specification of rendering, As for - and >, they've been in use in plain text email clients for bulleted lists and quotations for 35 years now [1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#:~:text=The%20convention%20of%20quoting%20was,%2D%2DJoe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#:~:text=The%20co...
  - al_borland 1y ago
    Those formatting codes are informative content. They tell the reader (even in plain text) that something is a section heading, bullet, code, etc. This is information people often want in a plain text file, and having a common way to signal those things is beneficial when working on teams or sharing with others. What’s the alternative? Everyone makes up their own bespoke way of formatting their text file that works for them, then has a key to explain it in their doc?
    - DidYaWipe 1y ago
      If I'm in a text environment that doesn't display styled text, I use capitalization, indentation, and spacing.

epistasis 1y ago

Markdown is plain text, so using Markdown is using plain text. What is your alternative to Markdown here?

DidYaWipe 1y ago
That's just playing dumb. It's only "plain text" in that it's non-binary. It contains formatting codes that aren't part of the informative content. If everyone's just using a plain-text reader to view these files, then why clutter them up with formatting codes?
- epistasis 1y ago
  I'm not "playing dumb" it's basically exactly the type of text I would type in my notes before it was codified. Headers, bullets, bold, italic, all would have fit in perfectly in text-based Usenet groups of the 90s. It's not "clutter" it's meaningful information for the human eye in plain text. Which is why I'm asking: what's your alternative? Is it no headers, no lists, no standard * or \_ for emphasis, as it has been done long before Markdown existed?
- DidYaWipe 1y ago
  Except that they aren't shown as bullets, headers, or bold unless your viewer understands the Markdown codes that invoke those decorations. Which is what I'm decrying the lack of. My "alternative" is to have DEDICATED, lightweight Markdown viewers. The major OSes have long come with a simple text-file viewer that can render RTF. Why not Markdown? In the meantime, I'm mystified as to why the format is so rampant when there is so little support for it.
  - jonp888 1y ago
    The whole point of Markdown is that the formatting codes intutitively make sense and are readable even without a viewer and without needing to read a specification first. People have been using asterisks as bullet points and to emphasise things long before anyone came up with Markdown. Maybe it doesn't to you, but it does to most people. An update to Microsoft Notepad which renders Markdown is currently being rolled out: https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2025/05/30/text-formatting-in-notepad-begin-rolling-out-to-windows-insiders/ https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2025/05/30/text-fo...
    - DidYaWipe 1y ago
      Well, that's nice about Notepad. I'm not sure I agree *something* is intuitive for italic and **something else** is intuitive for bold, or that this is intuitively a block quote: > #### The quarterly results look great! > > - Revenue was off the chart. > - Profits were higher than ever. > > Everything is going according to *plan*.
      - allarm 1y ago
        ">" was the quotation symbol used by email clients for decades. See mutt, elm.
        DidYaWipe 1y ago
        Yep, sure was.
      - jen20 1y ago
        Typically, italic formatting indicates gentle emphasis, bold formatting indicates strong emphasis. Given this, * and * make sense. However, typically people use _ for gentle emphasis in Markdown, which makes _even more_ sense. Be careful not to confuse specification of rendering, As for - and >, they've been in use in plain text email clients for bulleted lists and quotations for 35 years now [1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#:~:text=The%20convention%20of%20quoting%20was,%2D%2DJoe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#:~:text=The%20co...
- al_borland 1y ago
  Those formatting codes are informative content. They tell the reader (even in plain text) that something is a section heading, bullet, code, etc. This is information people often want in a plain text file, and having a common way to signal those things is beneficial when working on teams or sharing with others. What’s the alternative? Everyone makes up their own bespoke way of formatting their text file that works for them, then has a key to explain it in their doc?
  - DidYaWipe 1y ago
    If I'm in a text environment that doesn't display styled text, I use capitalization, indentation, and spacing.