div & span support

[Jacob Rus]

Andrea Censi wrote:

> On 3/5/07, Richard Taytor <dick at gutz.com> wrote:

>>> [John Fraser:] Being able to wrap Markdown text in divs and spans ...

>> I find div and span tags quite useful. Here is an example of the syntax I'm presently using.

>>

>> [[ {#orchard}

>> Contents of div here. And ~this{.plum}~ is how I do spans.

>> ]]

> 

> I also need DIVs and I will implement them in Maruku.

> 

> I will be glad to hear suggestions for the syntax.

> 

> Here is another hypothesis:

> 

>     +================ {#id}

> 

>          nested div:

> 

>      +========================

>            inside nested DIV

>      -========================

> 

>     -==============

> 

> I like the fact that the line of `=` separates well the DIV's content

> from the rest of the document.


I don't mean to spoil the party, but IMO these are all non-solutions to 
a non-problem, which make the markup significantly uglier than it was 
before.

The nice thing about Markdown is that it *doesn't try* to map exactly to 
HTML, but instead tries to map to the parts people need when *writing*. 
  Notice: *writing is not the same as html*.  None of these divs or 
spans is necessary in a plain text format, such as conventional plain 
email, or rfc writing style.  Now sure, when you're making a complex web 
page, it's nice to have all sorts of complex tags.  But that's not the 
same as the writing content, and IMO it should be separated.

Let me mirror JG: if you want to make complex html tags, just use bloody 
html!  Let's not invent another (equally complex) syntax for it; it's a 
solved problem (the w3c didn't create the best solution ever, but it's 
not too bad), and we're just making matters worse by introducing our own 
syntax in this case.

Now, tables, notes, definition lists, and inline formulas are another 
matter.  For this reason, I think it would be neat to have some sort of 
more general extension mechanism.  But that's a discussion for another day.

In general, I don't think it helps the basic markdown format for us to 
add features just because we can.  Especially not features that are only 
relevant in the context of html documents, add not inconsiderable 
complexity to the appearance of the text, and through their inclusion 
limit the future use of similar syntax for more useful purposes.