A Modest Definition List Proposal

[David E. Wheeler]

On Feb 23, 2009, at 8:59 AM, John Gruber wrote:


>> Thanks John. Like I said, I prefer it to a colon because, in my  

>> mind at least, a colon goes at the end of things, not the beginning  

>> of things.

>

> I lean toward colon because I see colons coming not at the beginning  

> or end, but in the middle, between things. In this case, between a  

> term and its definition(s).


I can see that, but:

  1. The same is true for tildes; even more true, since
     there is usually a space on either side of a tilde
  2. The colon is very hard to see in some fonts; it
     makes a lousy bullet, IMHO, especially when it's the
     first character on a line
  3. I've been thinking about table syntax, looking at
     what the OSS databases do, and PostgreSQL has a nice
     use for colons to show continued records:

  id |      name       |            description
----+-----------------+------------------------------------
   6 | Inset           | An inset element type
   8 | Related Stories | A related stories element type.
   5 | Illustration    | An illustration media type
                       : and I think you know what I mean.
   2 | Column          | A weekly column story type
  10 | Story           | A story document type


That seems kind of nice to me because a colon is kind of like a broken  
pipe.

But that's for a later discussion, and might not conflict with PHP  
Markdown Extra's use of a colon for DLs, anyway. As I said, we could  
support both just as we support `*`, `+`, and `-` for unordered list  
bullets.

Best,

David