Tables

[Fletcher T. Penney]

On Nov 16, 2005, at 10:33 AM, Jelks Cabaniss wrote:


> Fletcher T. Penney wrote:

>>>> But I really feel that tables are too important not to include in

>>>> Markdown

>

>>> I agree, but I think that attributes are equally as important, and I

>>> hope to see them implemented soon.

>

>> I'm with you - and they have been available for a week or so with

>> MultiMarkdown, for the unbelievably low price....  ;)

>

> Ah, but (at least from what I can see) MultiMarkdown only has image  

> and link

> attributes, occuring "out-of-line".  I meant attributes *period*:


This is where I agree with John's stance (at least as I most recently  
understand it - I certainly can't speak for him) that I want Markdown  
to be as close to human readable plain text as possible:

"The overriding design goal for Markdown’s formatting syntax is to  
make it as readable as possible. The idea is that a Markdown- 
formatted document should be publishable as-is, as plain text,  
without looking like it’s been marked up with tags or formatting  
instructions. While Markdown’s syntax has been influenced by several  
existing text-to-HTML filters, the single biggest source of  
inspiration for Markdown’s syntax is the format of plain text email."

IMHO, link and image based attributes still fit into this, randomly  
placed attributes at every paragraph and header certainly don't (in  
my view).  I agree that it is somewhat arbitrary as to when something  
crosses the line into "tags or formatting instructions."  I hope that  
John remains true to his original statement (if that's how he still  
feels).   He may even feel that some of what I have done with  
MultiMarkdown has gone too far - I have tried to keep any markup  
syntax that I add as "plain text"-ish as possible.

At a certain level of complexity, I would be in favor of hand- 
tweaking the Markdown-generated XHTML, rather than ending up with a  
plain text syntax that no longer looks like plain text.  There's  
something rather elegant about having a plain text readme file that  
looks like any other, but knowing that you can run it through  
Markdown and end up with an XHTML file (or pdf, etc).

As always, just my own personal opinion...

F-

-- 
Fletcher T. Penney
fletcher at alumni.duke.edu

Bored people, unless they sleep a lot, are cruel.
     - Renata Alder


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