[this] as a synonym for [this][]

[John Gruber]

Michel Fortin <michel.fortin at michelf.com> wrote on 03/31/05 at 5:02pm:

> That's a recommendation for the writer, what's the recommendation to 
> the reader? I mean: even if the author follows this recommandation, 
> when the reader see a paragraph with brackets, how can he know if these 
> are links or actual brackets?

He can't, I suppose. You're right that it's the primary downside to
the `[this]` shortcut proposal, but I'm inclined to leave this up to
the author. If you, as a writer using Markdown, are concerned about
this potential ambiguity for readers who may be exposed to your raw
Markdown text, then you should avoid using it.

I think it's important to remember that the vast majority of
Markdown users aren't exposing their raw Markdown to readers. And
even I'm only doing it as a sort of trick to help people get the
gist and feel for the syntax.

Now that I have this hooked up in code, I really enjoy using it. It
really looks so much better to me in manuscript form than `[this][]`.

-J.G.