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

[Rad Geek]

On Sun, 03 Apr 2005 12:59:19 -0400, John Gruber <gruber at fedora.net> wrote:

> Rad Geek <technophilia at radgeek.com> wrote on 04/03/05 at 10:28am:
>
>> 4.    Prior usage; `[[this]]` is already widely used in WikiPedia and  
>> other
>> Wikis
>>
>> What do y'all think?
>
> To me, #4 is the reason I *don't* want t support this: I'd like to
> see Markdown adopted as a standard -- or maybe eventually even *the*
> standard -- wiki markup syntax. I'm using Markdown in an
> Instiki-powered wiki for a big specification project right now, and
> the entire team is finding it very productive. But we're using the
> [[double bracket]] syntax for the wiki cross-linking.
>
> So I'm strongly inclined to leave this syntax as reserved for use by
> wiki software itself.

But is there really a conflict here? Here's two short Markdown pages:

	I like to use [[free links]].

And:

	I like to use [[free links]].

	[free links]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_links

If you run Markdown before you run the code that renders Wiki  
cross-references, then the second one links to WikiPedia on "Free links"  
and the first one still links to "free links" inside your own Wiki,  
because Markdown doesn't change the `[[free links]]` into anything. And in  
fact, this looks pretty natural--to my eyes at least. Maybe I'm weird, but  
if I saw the second sample in a Wiki it would seem pretty natural to think  
"OK, she wants a link to a resource on free links, but she wants to  
explicitly point to the resource on WikiPedia instead of the resource on  
this Wiki that `[[free links]]` ordinarily points to."

Of course, there's a possibility for collision here:

	I like to use [[free links]].

	And you should consult WikiPedia about [free links][].

	[free links]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_links

... where the author wanted the first one to be an intra-wiki  
cross-reference. But why would anyone write like that? The fact that the  
Markdown reference-style link syntax (which is going to be available  
anyway) *already* looks something like the intra-Wiki linking syntax would  
be reason enough for a lot of people not to give references the same name  
as Wiki pages they want to link to. So they'd be a lot more likely to use  
something like:

	I like to use [[free links]].

	And you should consult WikiPedia about [free links][1].

	[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_links

Does that make any sense?

Cheers,
-C

-- 
Charles Johnson <technophilia at radgeek.com>
AIM: AiPuch
WWW: http://www.radgeek.com/

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