Tables

[John Gruber]

Dr. Drang <drdrang at gmail.com> wrote on 12/2/05 at 12:28 PM:


> * In fact, I'd like to see the cell alignment extended to include

> decimal alignment. Thus

> 

>    Multiply  |   by     | to get

>    ----------|.---------|---------

>     ft       |   0.3048 | m

>     mph      |   0.447  | m/s

>     in       |  25.4    | mm

>     hp       | 745.7    | W


I can't see the advantage to adding this sort of "line noise"
complexity to Markdown's table rules when you can get the same
effect using regular right-justification and zero-padding the
numbers:

    Multiply  |   by     | to get
    ----------|----------|---------
    ft        |   0.3048 | m
    mph       |   0.4470 | m/s
    in        |  25.4000 | mm
    hp        | 745.7000 | W


You can say, "Well, I don't want to add those zeroes", but my answer
would be "Then just right raw HTML". I think anything other than
left/right/center alignment is needless complexity for Markdown.

-J.G.