A Modest Definition List Proposal

[David E. Wheeler]

On Feb 18, 2009, at 10:44 AM, David E. Wheeler wrote:


> See my blog entry for more detailed description of why I prefer the  

> tilde to the colon for this purpose. The best things about it are  

> that it makes for a more natural bullet, already has precedent in  

> dictionaries, and suggest equivalency if you're familiar with  

> mathematics, which makes for a nice mnemonic.

>

> Comments? Has this ship already sailed?


Aristotle was kind enough to point me to some older posts on the  
subject of definition lists, where I saw this message from Mssr. Gruber:

On Jul 27, 2005, at 7:33 AM, John Gruber wrote:


> And since the ones with multiple terms and/or definitions are the

> exception, not the norm, I think in the common cases, you'd wind up

> with something that looks like this:

>

>   Term 1:: Definition a blah blah blah blah blah

>   Term 2:: Definition b foo bar baz

>   Term 3:: Definition c even more blah blah blah


Was this ever implemented? I haven't noticed it in the documentation  
for PHP Markdown Extra or MultiMarkdown.

I think that, using the tilde as I've suggested in this thread, this  
can be even better:

   Term 1 ~ Definition a blah blah blah blah blah
   Term 2 ~ Definition b foo bar baz
   Term 3 ~ Definition c even more blah blah blah

Basically, it's the same rule, only you don't have to have a newline  
before the definition starts. Also, the single ~ is a little less  
“unnatural” looking than the double : (and I say that as a Perl  
hacker, so I'm used to “::”!).

Best,

David