Implicit Link Names

[european bob]

On Fri, 2004-04-02 at 19:57, Jason Clark wrote:
> After testing it in the dingus and failing, I stumbled across the 
> [link][] syntax.  I've been using that instead, but would prefer 
> to lose the extra chars.  Having read all of the subsequent 
> conversation, I still think the risk of accidental triggering 
> is negligable, and I hope to see this feature.  

I don't think the risk is negligible, although I'm in favour of
[implicit links]. For example, someone cited the example of links that
look like this[1]. They are extremely common in e-mail, and Markdown
will be making them look odd. (Actually, I even disagree they're links -
I always understood them to be footnotes ;)

I think the problem is basically what happens when you have a link which
doesn't have a definition. Currently, that falls back to a explicit
bracketed thing. That strikes me as difficult, because it means a
spelling mistake will stop it working and - worse - there is no way you
can detect it at all.

> Also (assuming adoption of the feature after testing), would this 
> eliminate the [link][] sytax?  MD is still beta, so I'd vote to remove 
> it as cruft, but I'll just need to know so I can edit a few entries on 
> my site.
> 
> [link]: http://example.com/included/for/completeness

If there were cruft to get rid of, I think I'd prefer the inline syntax
to go ;) I don't think you can get rid of [link][id], because you may
always want a nickname (link text could be very long). Simply outlawing
an empty id seems a bit pointless.

I think I'd prefer something like [inline implicit link]* and 
[inline implicit image]! though... I'm still slightly uneasy about just
plain [link].

--bob.