What does Markdown do with HTML comments? Recommendation on Markdown file extension?

[bucephalus org]

Hello, all you nice people out there!

Thank you for your comments and reactions, this is helpful and I got the
message.

Markdown is a great format for writing standard texts and it has become my
first choice.
I use a couple of tools to create my own "office environment" that allows me
to comfortable work with it.
I am also using it for my own program code documentations [1]. This concept
of using Markdown as both a documentation language and the intermediate
format in the conversion process has great potentials and I already outlined
it on this mailing list under the title of CodeDown [2]. I am working on a
script that implements all that, and this is making slow but steady
progress.
As soon as this is operational, I would like to announce it here, again, and
I am already keen on the criticism.

In this context, I was wondering, if there is a standard extension for
Markdown files, because that would be a convenient indicator for converters
and other scripts to identify the source type automatically.

I can live with the facts and I don't see it as my mission to enforce a
standard. But maybe the Markdown community and authorities should really
reconsider this issue. When it comes to (formal) languages, freedom is no
freedom, but ambiguity. And that never helps, certainly not on the long run.
There are so many great programming languages out there that died of their
plurality of dialects and lack of standardization. Perl's "there are more
than one way to do it" may even be another example for the recipe for
trouble and its own downfall.
I think, even Markdowns own plurality, e.g. that
  _this_
and
  *this*
are identical, is not helping anybody, but only increasing the learning and
reading problems.
Waylan, earlier in this thread, pointed out some arguments against a
standard, but these advantages are minor, in my opinion.

Well, maybe I am a bit carried away, by now. What really started my email
was my wish to thank you for all the interesting answers on my questions.

Yours, Tom


[1]
http://www.bucephalus.org/ElephantMark/elephantmark.php?php=elephantmark.php&title=ElephantMark&css=mystyle.css
[2]
http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/markdown-discuss/2011-April/thread.html
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