list corner case

[Bowerbird at aol.com]

aristotle said:

>    I know that as a human I have no trouble extracting some 

>    meaning from any of the examples given in this thread.


well, um, nobody has any trouble "extracting some meaning".
the problem is that different people extract different meaning.



>    My interpretation of the Markdown philosophy is that 

>    plaintext documents have inherent meaning to humans, 

>    and the rules of the syntax should be designed to 

>    infer that meaning correctly. 


emphasis on _correctly_...

i can make examples where your interpretation will be correct,
according to the semantic knowledge that humans would bring.

i can also make examples where other interpretations are correct,
according to the semantic knowledge that humans would bring.

you will privilege some of these examples, and not the others...



>    Obviously, the formatter should try its best 

>    to reflect the structure of the written prose


the question is what to do when the structure is ambiguous.

you're saying "do something, anything" is the right approach.

i've put forth a position that "do nothing" is a better method,
because that will force the author to become less ambiguous.

this position has enough rigor that you cannot destroy it.
i'd say it's far better to say "i don't prefer it" and move on.

-bowerbird



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