7 ms·

I'm a little surprised at the level of negativity in the majority of the comments here. I understand our cultural need for criticism here, but the critics here

I'm a little surprised at the level of negativity in the majority of the comments here. I understand our cultural need for criticism here, but the critics here have touched almost everything (and note that the most insubstantial of claims have bubbled up to the top of the comments here): Naming [2] [5] Closed (initial) development [1] Lack of formal grammar [3] Lack of tables [4] Just use another format (e.g. asciidoc) [6] Ambiguity is a feature [7] Can we please take a moment to appreciate the achievement here? As opposed to fulfilling our own sense entitlement? Markdown is a popular language with an ambiguous, poorly specified spec and buggy default implementation (so buggy that the vast majority of Markdown users have probably never used it, if they even know it exists). Now, we have a much more well-specified English language spec that explicitly addresses the challenges of the grammar, with a test suite that does a much better job of covering the corner cases, and much better default implementations. These improvements are by no means perfect, but they are improvements. Yes, we need a formal grammar. Yes, we need tables, and other features. Yes, the naming is unfortunate, though frankly I don't feel sorry for Gruber given that Atwood posted a public letter calling for change two years ago. Yes, these are all issues. But it is an achievement nevertheless, and let's celebrate that. And then we can get back to work. ---- More generally, I think we have issues with entitlement here on HN. Frankly, we have no fundamental right to either the original Markdown or this new version. But when posts like this come up, we hack away at them as if we had a right for better, as if the authors should be working to please us personally. We need to stop acting like we have a right to sentence judgement over what others release as open source. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8265469 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8265469 [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8266370 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8266370 [3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8264828 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8264828 [4]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8265299 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8265299 [5]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8266073 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8266073 [6]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8264895 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8264895 [7]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8266121 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8266121

tjradcliffe 12y ago
<em>Markdown is a popular language with an ambiguous, poorly specified spec and buggy default implementation...</em> That never hurt Perl... :-) Sorry, couldn't resist. Your sentiments are well-taken. No one "owns" Markdown, and quibbling over words is unproductive. There is a concept: "a simple in-line markup language that is easy to write and maps clearly to HTML". One instance of that concept is a specific, buggy, ill-defined language called "Markdown". "Standard Markdown" is another instance of the same concept. This is the way English works: adding modifiers to words that designate one instance of a concept to designate other instances of the same concept. Getting to an EBNF grammar from the spec would be awesome, but the spec is a great place to start. All spec generation is tendentious, and it is common to have multiple people highly invested in the generation of different specs for the same nominal standard. Politics, as Aristotle tells us, is the master art. This is why.
- deleted 12y ago
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- djrogers 12y ago
  "This is the way English works: adding modifiers to words that designate one instance of a concept to designate other instances of the same concept." So you think anyone would think it was totally cool if someone released things called 'Standard Excel' and 'Standard MacOS'? That wouldn't get by without criticism, why should this?
  - deong 12y ago
    I think you can draw an analogy to trademark law here. I know we're not talking about anyone registering trademarks and suing each other here, but when it's good, law tends to reflect common practice, and I think trademark law actually does that pretty well. I think most reasonable people look at the way trademark law treats issues like this as being more or less how they think the issue should be treated. That is to say, you can't really spend a decade or two letting "Markdown" sort of mean whatever people want it to mean, and only then cry foul for the N+1 person to use the term. "Excel" and "MacOS" have not been genericized (is that a word?) to the same extent that "Markdown" has.

tjradcliffe 12y ago

<em>Markdown is a popular language with an ambiguous, poorly specified spec and buggy default implementation...</em> That never hurt Perl... :-) Sorry, couldn't resist. Your sentiments are well-taken. No one "owns" Markdown, and quibbling over words is unproductive. There is a concept: "a simple in-line markup language that is easy to write and maps clearly to HTML". One instance of that concept is a specific, buggy, ill-defined language called "Markdown". "Standard Markdown" is another instance of the same concept. This is the way English works: adding modifiers to words that designate one instance of a concept to designate other instances of the same concept. Getting to an EBNF grammar from the spec would be awesome, but the spec is a great place to start. All spec generation is tendentious, and it is common to have multiple people highly invested in the generation of different specs for the same nominal standard. Politics, as Aristotle tells us, is the master art. This is why.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
djrogers 12y ago
"This is the way English works: adding modifiers to words that designate one instance of a concept to designate other instances of the same concept." So you think anyone would think it was totally cool if someone released things called 'Standard Excel' and 'Standard MacOS'? That wouldn't get by without criticism, why should this?
- deong 12y ago
  I think you can draw an analogy to trademark law here. I know we're not talking about anyone registering trademarks and suing each other here, but when it's good, law tends to reflect common practice, and I think trademark law actually does that pretty well. I think most reasonable people look at the way trademark law treats issues like this as being more or less how they think the issue should be treated. That is to say, you can't really spend a decade or two letting "Markdown" sort of mean whatever people want it to mean, and only then cry foul for the N+1 person to use the term. "Excel" and "MacOS" have not been genericized (is that a word?) to the same extent that "Markdown" has.