Markdown development

[Seumas Mac Uilleachan]

On 21/03/10 06:13 AM, Aristotle Pagaltzis wrote:

> * Seumas Mac Uilleachan <seumas at idirect.ca> [2010-03-21 00:45]:

>

>> I hear constantly about needing "Gruber's blessing" for any

>> overhaul or changes to Markdown. Why?

>>      

> In case you are referring to my own recent mail, I never said it

> needs *Gruber*’s blessing specifically. What it does need is one

> central voice. If you think it doesn’t, then ask yourself why all

> of the reimplementations have added their own features, yet none

> of them have copied each other.

>    


I wasn't referring to you specifically. I keep reading here about how 
the lack of input from him is what is causing the perceived 
fragmentation in Markdown implementations. All I meant to say is that 
Gruber seems to have lost interest in Markdown development and we just 
need to move beyond needing his blessing.


> Except that several of them have copied Markdown Extra. As it

> happens, Michel Fortin had some blessing from Gruber on several

> of his efforts. Coincidence?

>

> No one needs permission or blessing to fork Markdown. Many people

> have done it.

>

> But that’s the point. To get more than Just Another Fork, it neds

> to have weight of voice to bring all the other forks together

> behind it.

>

>    

>> The goal of markdown is readability. There is no such thing as

>> a readable html table. I would argue that tables are a useful

>> enough feature to include. Whether it is done badly or well is

>> often subjective. At the minimum a simple table format would be

>> important to me (not requiring spanning cells or complex table

>> layouts). Tables are the easiest way to list corresponding

>> values or data that they really should be somehow included.

>>      

> The problem with tables as I see it is as above: I think that

> tables fundamentally cannot be both easy to edit and easy to read

> within the constraints of plaintext.

>    


It depends on what you are trying to do. If you want a simple 
multi-column list of corresponding text such as:

Position      Team              P      GD      PTS
1                 Man Utd         31     46      67
2                 Arsenal          31     40       67
3                 Chelsea          29     42      64
4                 Tottenham     30     26      55
5                 Liverpool       31     19       52
6                 Man City        28     17       50
7                 Aston Villa     29     17       50
8                 Everton          30      6       45
9                 Birmingham   30     -3       44
10               Fulham           29      0       38
11               Stoke              30     -6       36
12               Sunderland    30     -6       34
13               Blackburn      29     -17     34
14               Bolton             31     -20     32
15               Wigan             31     -30     31
16               Wolves            30     -24     28
17               West Ham       30     -14     27
18               Burnley           31     -33     24
19               Hull                 30     -35     24
20               Portsmouth    30     -25     13

It should be possible to do without having to use html. For more complex 
tables (eg multiple lines in spanning cells, tables within tables) you 
are getting into a different kettle of fish - I can see requiring html 
for that.

> Regards,

>