Footnotes

[John Gruber]

Denis Defreyne <amonre at amonre.org> wrote on 07/29/05 at 2:46 pm:


> I don't believe footnotes fit in the scope of Markdown. Every syntax  

> element in Markdown has a HTML counterpart; footnotes do not. If HTML  

> would define footnotes in some way, I believe most problems would be  

> solved: what class should footnotes have, do we really want `<sup>`,  

> should footnotes really be at the bottom, maybe it's better to have  

> footnotes after a text section instead of at the very bottom, what  

> about floating tooltips instead of footnotes, etc.

> 

> But HTML does not define footnotes and as such, IMO, do not fit in  

> the scope of Markdown.


That's a well-reasoned argument. In fact, it's pretty much exactly
the argument I used to offer myself when people would ask me for
footnote support in Markdown.

However, I think the fact that footnotes can't be natively defined
in HTML is a problem with HTML, and I don't see why Markdown should
be limited by every shortcoming of HTML.

It will be the case that Markdown's syntax for footnotes will be
such that if you disagree with the decision to support them, you can
just pretend they aren't supported and you'll almost certainly never
run into problems. It'll be there if you want it, and you can ignore
if it if you don't.

-J.G.