Markdown development

[Seumas Mac Uilleachan]

On 25/03/10 10:08 AM, Aristotle Pagaltzis wrote:

> * Seumas Mac Uilleachan<seumas at idirect.ca>  [2010-03-24 01:30]:

>    

>> Elastic tabstops would certainly make my pseudo-table much

>> cleaner. Would make creating such a table a breeze without

>> requiring special markup. Is this idea actually catching on

>>      

> Yeah, elastic tabstops solve this problem in a fundamental way.

> The problem is they’re a boil-the-ocean solution, they require

> support in almost all tools that will touch the document in

> question. That’s a very high activation energy barrier… you’ll

> need a catalyst to get them adopted, eg. a new OS/platform that

> fully supports them from the get-go – essentially you need an

> Apple to throw their weight behind it.

>

>    

>> like Sony Beta - a better solution that no one will buy into?

>>      

> Myth. Betamax was inferior to VHS in significant ways, even if

> it had an obvious advantage in picture quality and cassette size.

> The market decided that people prefer VHS’ mix of good and bad to

> Betamax’ mix of good and bad. End of story.

>

> It’s like saying webmail is inferior to desktop mail clients.

>

> Regards,

>    

Beta was inferior to VHS in market penetration because VHS was licensed 
for free and Beta wasn't. Much like the PC vs Mac early on. In both 
cases the Beta and Mac were technologically superior but cost more.