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

[John Gruber]

Rad Geek <technophilia at radgeek.com> wrote on 04/03/05 at 10:34am:

> What advantage does writing `[-text to be deleted-] [+text to be  
> inserted+]` really have over writing `<del>text to be deleted</del>  
> <ins>text to be inserted</ins>`? Is the one really any clearer than the  
> other? I mean, Markdown *already* allows you to put inline HTML in. I'm  
> pretty sure of how `*this*` improves on `<em>this</em>` when writing for  
> the web; I'm not at all sure how replacements for `<cite>`, `<span>`, etc.  
> do...

That's why they're not there.

I'm not very tempted to add support for `<ins>` or `<del>`, because
I don't think any plaintext shortcut for them is going to be any
clearer than the HTML. Plus, there's no tradition in plaintext email
or text files for inserted or deleted text spans. They're very
specifically HTML markup.

On the other hand, I am tempted to add support for `<sup>`, and
possibly `<sub>`. Not for writing mathematics -- Markdown is never
going to be suitable for marking up equations, and it would be a
mistake to pretend it could be -- but for very simple usage, such as
footnotes.

-J.G.