on the philosophical aspects of a specification

[Yuri Takhteyev]

>  I don't think Markdown should be changed, we just need a spec to avoid

>  each implementation from implementing "cleverness" in incompatible

>  manners. Let's specify exactly how things *are* parsed now, minus the

>  bugs.


I agree.  Let's try to avoid any serious changes.  To the extent that
the implementations and "Markdown Syntax" agree, let's just go with
that.  In cases where they don't, let's decide what makes most sense.
Needless to say, working out a spec means that at least some of the
implementations would need to be changed, and would no longer generate
the same output for the same input.  I just think that when resolving
the differences we should consider actual usage and the "spirit" of
the original syntax document, rather than the letter of "Markdown
Syntax".

In particular, I would consider going with the PHP Markdown Extra
solution over Markdown.pl in a few cases (at least for underscores in
the middle of the word, which is my pet peeve).

- yuri

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