evolving the spec (was: forking Markdown.pl?)

[Waylan Limberg]

On Fri, Feb 29, 2008 at 10:56 AM, Waylan Limberg <waylan at gmail.com> wrote:

>  That's not to say that there are no valid arguments to add additional

>  syntax, but the arguments for those new rules would need to be very

>  convincing.


Just wanted to note that this does not mean that I'm opposed to
additional syntax. In fact, last I checked I have written more
extensions to python-markdown than any other single person. But those
extensions are just that, extensions, which can easily be included or
excluded with python-markdown's extension api. In fact, that api is
the feature of python-markdown we are most proud of. However, the core
of python-markdown *mostly* (there are still a few bugs we haven't
ironed out) conforms to the syntax rules and adds little to no
additional features.

Perhaps, if a new set of rules were created, we should also define the
rules for various extensions that don't make it into the core for some
reason or another. It looks like this is what Micheal Fortin is trying
to do with his spec for php markdown extra. The thing is, I see his
documentation for extra as just that. Not sure what we need the spec
for unless it's his 2.0.

Although I think it would be helpful if everything was all in one
place. There have been various proposals on this list that have
received general approval from the community, but as they have never
been added to the rules, they soon become lost and forgotten unless
another implementation takes it upon itself to maintain it's own
rules. I'm with Yuri here that perhaps a public location not
associated with any one implementation would be the answer.

However, I imagine the current syntax rules are copyrighted by J.G.,
so we can't just copy them over and start honing them. We'd have to
start from scratch. Uhg. Perhaps the extensions alone could be defined
at http://markdown.infogami.com/ for all implementations, but being a
publicly editable wiki, who gets final say?


-- 
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Waylan Limberg
waylan at gmail.com