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> What it can't do (as far as I understand): complex layouts, precise typography, embedded binary content, anything that needs pixel-perfect rendering. Am I mis

> What it can't do (as far as I understand): complex layouts, precise typography, embedded binary content, anything that needs pixel-perfect rendering. Am I missing anything? What are the other limitations I should know about? Multi-level lists, annoyingly, get rendered as code at the deeper levels because of the 4+ spaces from the beginning of the line. This is a serious and major drawback of markdown, making it good for developers only. The average person does not want to render code. Remove that one drawback, and it'll get even better adoption.

kstrauser 10mo ago
That's a "feature" of a specific renderer. I just went 22 levels deep with Zed and Marked, and both kept rendering each line as regular text.
- lelanthran 10mo ago
  >> The average person does not want to render code. > I just went 22 levels deep with Zed and Marked Sounds like you're agreeing with me :-/ Or are you arguing that the average person is a programmer, using programming editors and JS libraries?
  - kstrauser 10mo ago
    I don’t follow. Marked definitely isn’t a programming tool. There’s nothing about Markdown that says nested lists should look like code. That’s just an accident of whatever editor you might be using, not of others.
    - lelanthran 10mo ago
      > There’s nothing about Markdown that says nested lists should look like code. Yes there is. The Common Mark spec, from 2014, says 4+ spaces indents are code. Nested lists go beyond 4+ indents pretty fast.
      - kstrauser 10mo ago
        …as long as you ignore the context that it’s a nested listed under a less-nested list. Also, note that CommonMark is not identical to Markdown. It intends to be a standard definition of the language, but may differ from the original definition and implementation.
    - xigoi 10mo ago
      > That’s just an accident of whatever editor you might be using, not of others. And that’s the main issue with Markdown.
chrismorgan 10mo ago
> Multi-level lists, annoyingly, get rendered as code at the deeper levels because of the 4+ spaces from the beginning of the line. Not so. You just need to be principled with your indentation, adding four spaces or one tab for every level of nesting. 1. Here is a thing. - See, it works. Nothing is amiss. 2. If you want to align everything… - Then it looks like this. Then it doesn’t seem so weird. (You can leave or remove the two spaces of HN code formatting; zero to three spaces don’t matter.)
- xigoi 10mo ago
  I’m pretty sure many Markdown implementations would turn this into a code block. Unfortunately Babelmark seems to currently be broken so I can’t test it.
  - chrismorgan 10mo ago
    The original spec says it should work, and it does with <https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/dingus https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/dingus>, as with <https://spec.commonmark.org/dingus/ https://spec.commonmark.org/dingus/>.
deleted 10mo ago
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arccy 10mo ago
your markdown parser isn't compliant with commonmark: https://spec.commonmark.org/0.31.2/#example-294 https://spec.commonmark.org/0.31.2/#example-294 indented code blocks are leaf blocks, while lists are containers that take precedence

kstrauser 10mo ago

That's a "feature" of a specific renderer. I just went 22 levels deep with Zed and Marked, and both kept rendering each line as regular text.

lelanthran 10mo ago
>> The average person does not want to render code. > I just went 22 levels deep with Zed and Marked Sounds like you're agreeing with me :-/ Or are you arguing that the average person is a programmer, using programming editors and JS libraries?
- kstrauser 10mo ago
  I don’t follow. Marked definitely isn’t a programming tool. There’s nothing about Markdown that says nested lists should look like code. That’s just an accident of whatever editor you might be using, not of others.
  - lelanthran 10mo ago
    > There’s nothing about Markdown that says nested lists should look like code. Yes there is. The Common Mark spec, from 2014, says 4+ spaces indents are code. Nested lists go beyond 4+ indents pretty fast.
    - kstrauser 10mo ago
      …as long as you ignore the context that it’s a nested listed under a less-nested list. Also, note that CommonMark is not identical to Markdown. It intends to be a standard definition of the language, but may differ from the original definition and implementation.
  - xigoi 10mo ago
    > That’s just an accident of whatever editor you might be using, not of others. And that’s the main issue with Markdown.

chrismorgan 10mo ago

> Multi-level lists, annoyingly, get rendered as code at the deeper levels because of the 4+ spaces from the beginning of the line. Not so. You just need to be principled with your indentation, adding four spaces or one tab for every level of nesting. 1. Here is a thing. - See, it works. Nothing is amiss. 2. If you want to align everything… - Then it looks like this. Then it doesn’t seem so weird. (You can leave or remove the two spaces of HN code formatting; zero to three spaces don’t matter.)

xigoi 10mo ago
I’m pretty sure many Markdown implementations would turn this into a code block. Unfortunately Babelmark seems to currently be broken so I can’t test it.
- chrismorgan 10mo ago
  The original spec says it should work, and it does with <https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/dingus https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/dingus>, as with <https://spec.commonmark.org/dingus/ https://spec.commonmark.org/dingus/>.

deleted 10mo ago

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arccy 10mo ago

your markdown parser isn't compliant with commonmark: https://spec.commonmark.org/0.31.2/#example-294 https://spec.commonmark.org/0.31.2/#example-294 indented code blocks are leaf blocks, while lists are containers that take precedence