elastic tabstops, proportional fonts, and more

[Bowerbird at aol.com]

sherwood said:

>    Nice rant.


um... thanks... i guess... although i consider a "rant"
to be an emotional outburst, and i save my emotions
for my poetry, and try to be _rational_ on listserves...



>    I sympathize.  Ain't going to happen.


why not?



>   you're proposing that browsers 

>    interpret a whole new language. 


not really.   not at all.

they receive the .markdown that's served,
convert it to the .html they expect, and then
process that .html normally and display it...

thus, the only added step is the _conversion_,
and we know that that involves <100k of code,
and can be accomplished in mere milliseconds.

100k of code in the bloatware that is 
a modern browser is next to nothing.

and the milliseconds are a tremendous bargain
offset by all the human _hours_ that'll be saved.

the _bureaucracy_ of browser buy-in might be
difficult to negotiate -- which is why i advocate
making a plug-in -- but the tech part isn't hard.

a plug-in would be enough to get a ball rolling...

i'm convinced that millions of regular users would
rather serve markdown (or another light markup)
instead of .html, if they actually had the _choice_...

and if millions of people started serving markdown,
the browser-makers would eventually pay attention.

-bowerbird

p.s.   the blogging programs might be a good place
to get a ball rolling as well.   if they gave notice that
they wanna serve markdown, it might get attention.



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