3 ms·

This feels like a post-facto explanation that gives way too much credit to Gruber as a language designer. I find it hard to assume that Markdown is extremely w

by rtpg 12y ago

This feels like a post-facto explanation that gives way too much credit to Gruber as a language designer. I find it hard to assume that Markdown is extremely well thought-through considering the fact that we didn't even get a grammar for the language, just an implementation that would be considered super broken in any other language.

kasey_junk 12y ago
This implies that Markdown is designed as a language, which would have things like grammars and can be reasoned about with proofs and the lambda calculas etc. Instead, Markdown should be thought of as a convention. A convention that allows for automated translation of ascii text into html. Further, instead of thinking of Markdown as designed think of it as evolved. In the case of an evolved convention, we wouldn't expect formalism or even long term design. What we would expect and what Markdown is extremely good at is usefulness, high levels of adoption and ease of change. Which we do see. If your needs require formalism, or complex html features then Markdown is not the right tool for you.
- leoc 12y ago
  If it's intended to be interpreted by computers, what's the point in avoiding precision? All a fuzzy specification does is make it probable that those interpretations will be mutually inconsistent and/or unintuitive and problematic and/or prone to crashes and security failures.
  - johnchristopher 12y ago
    > If it's intended to be interpreted by computers, what's the point in avoiding precision? Because markdown is for humans first and foremost, not computers. It can't be clearer than that.
    - rtpg 12y ago
      that is disingenuous considering that Markdown the spec is offered alongside markdown.pl. If it's intended for humans first and foremost, then why offer the transpiler? After all, it already looks like ASCII e-mail. The overriding directive is human-readability, not unparsability (which do not go hand in hand).
    - leoc 12y ago
      How could it be for humans any more or less than any other language which is designed primarily to be written by humans and then interpreted by computers?
      - stouset 12y ago
        Markdown is designed primarily for humans in both those tasks. Interpretability by computers is second to interpretability by people.
Bockit 12y ago
Actually the markdown page on his site mentions exactly that as markdown's intention. > The overriding design goal for Markdown’s formatting syntax is to make it as readable as possible. The idea is that a Markdown-formatted document should be publishable as-is, as plain text, without looking like it’s been marked up with tags or formatting instructions. While Markdown’s syntax has been influenced by several existing text-to-HTML filters, the single biggest source of inspiration for Markdown’s syntax is the format of plain text email.
- tptacek 12y ago
  Worth adding that it's said that since 2004, when archive.org first noticed the page.
sedev 12y ago
"Markdown is two things: (1) a plain text formatting syntax; and (2) a software tool… that converts the plain text formatting to HTML. […] The overriding design goal for Markdown’s formatting syntax is to make it as readable as possible. The idea is that a Markdown-formatted document should be publishable as-is, as plain text, without looking like it’s been marked up with tags or formatting instructions… the single biggest source of inspiration for Markdown’s syntax is the format of plain text email." http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/ http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/ I don't think it's far-fetched to say what tptacek did since it's dang close to what Gruber has always said about Markdown. Note that phrasing: it's not a language, it's a "plain text formatting syntax."

by rtpg 12y ago

kasey_junk 12y ago

This implies that Markdown is designed as a language, which would have things like grammars and can be reasoned about with proofs and the lambda calculas etc. Instead, Markdown should be thought of as a convention. A convention that allows for automated translation of ascii text into html. Further, instead of thinking of Markdown as designed think of it as evolved. In the case of an evolved convention, we wouldn't expect formalism or even long term design. What we would expect and what Markdown is extremely good at is usefulness, high levels of adoption and ease of change. Which we do see. If your needs require formalism, or complex html features then Markdown is not the right tool for you.

leoc 12y ago
If it's intended to be interpreted by computers, what's the point in avoiding precision? All a fuzzy specification does is make it probable that those interpretations will be mutually inconsistent and/or unintuitive and problematic and/or prone to crashes and security failures.
- johnchristopher 12y ago
  > If it's intended to be interpreted by computers, what's the point in avoiding precision? Because markdown is for humans first and foremost, not computers. It can't be clearer than that.
  - rtpg 12y ago
    that is disingenuous considering that Markdown the spec is offered alongside markdown.pl. If it's intended for humans first and foremost, then why offer the transpiler? After all, it already looks like ASCII e-mail. The overriding directive is human-readability, not unparsability (which do not go hand in hand).
  - leoc 12y ago
    How could it be for humans any more or less than any other language which is designed primarily to be written by humans and then interpreted by computers?
    - stouset 12y ago
      Markdown is designed primarily for humans in both those tasks. Interpretability by computers is second to interpretability by people.

Bockit 12y ago

Actually the markdown page on his site mentions exactly that as markdown's intention. > The overriding design goal for Markdown’s formatting syntax is to make it as readable as possible. The idea is that a Markdown-formatted document should be publishable as-is, as plain text, without looking like it’s been marked up with tags or formatting instructions. While Markdown’s syntax has been influenced by several existing text-to-HTML filters, the single biggest source of inspiration for Markdown’s syntax is the format of plain text email.

tptacek 12y ago
Worth adding that it's said that since 2004, when archive.org first noticed the page.

sedev 12y ago

"Markdown is two things: (1) a plain text formatting syntax; and (2) a software tool… that converts the plain text formatting to HTML. […] The overriding design goal for Markdown’s formatting syntax is to make it as readable as possible. The idea is that a Markdown-formatted document should be publishable as-is, as plain text, without looking like it’s been marked up with tags or formatting instructions… the single biggest source of inspiration for Markdown’s syntax is the format of plain text email." http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/ http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/ I don't think it's far-fetched to say what tptacek did since it's dang close to what Gruber has always said about Markdown. Note that phrasing: it's not a language, it's a "plain text formatting syntax."