A reminder of the original design goal of Markdown - my personal thoughts

[Fletcher T. Penney]

> 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.


     --  from the Markdown web page

The latest talk of classes and id's reminded me of the original  
purpose of markdown as I understood it, and as described on John's  
web site.  I realize that just because additional features are added  
does not mean that I **have** to use them, but it does begin to wear  
into the beauty of the Markdown syntax to see it become (almost) as  
complicated as XHTML.

First, I want to say that I do think there is room for improvement in  
the Markdown syntax.  But I am not certain that recent proposals have  
been keeping in line with the original stated goals of Markdown.   
(Actually, I remember bringing this up a year or two ago on this very  
list...  ;)

I would like to suggest that we think about what it was that drew us  
to using Markdown in the first place.  When one's needs start getting  
too complicated, requiring the addition of more and more ways of  
"sneaking" markup in, that's when you go back to XHTML.  That's what  
XHTML was designed for.

I would like to see Markdown remain true to it's original intent.  A  
plain text syntax for structured documents that reads **AS IS**.   
It's this simplicity that makes Markdown so attractive to me.

I would like to see support for footnotes (of some sort, there does  
not need to be a whole battery of footnote, citation, end-notes,  
etc), and I think it can be done in a manner consistent with  
Markdown's original design goal.

I would like to see support for header anchors, and I would rather  
see this approach:

     ### Inline HTML ###
becomes
     <h3 id="inlinehtml">Inline HTML</h3>

than this approach:

     ## Header ##   {#head2}

I find the second version to be distracting when read as raw text,  
and it certainly doesn't follow the original idea of not "looking  
like it’s been marked up with tags or formatting instructions."

The final word is John's, but I would like to voice my support for  
simplicity and elegance.  That's what drew me to Markdown, and where  
it's true strength lies.  I think that further additions should be  
made with this original goal in mind.

Otherwise, I envision myself (and other "purists" if there are any)  
creating a "Markdown Lite" that removes any additions that don't fit  
the original plan.  If the project is going to deviate from this  
plan, I believe it should at least deviate on purpose.  Not through  
the slow unchecked feature-bloat of time.

Just my $0.02...

Fletcher

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

A good scapegoat is nearly as welcome as a solution
to the problem.
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: smime.p7s
Type: application/pkcs7-signature
Size: 3949 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/markdown-discuss/attachments/20050903/3ca99076/smime.bin