An Observation

[Rob Reed]

I agree that there are a lot of implementations that have "gotten on
with it" in the sense that they're being actively developed, and their
authors are trying to tackle some of the issues that exist with the
original implementation (and the somewhat vague description of how
Markdown is supposed to behave).

LQ > isn't this what the superset implementations do?

The problem is that these things are all described as some form of Markdown.

For example, 'superset implementations' begs the question,

Superset of what, exactly?

Whenever there is an edge case, or new idea, that leads to,

What does Markdown have to say about this?

The answer to that question is always absolutely nothing (or at least
nothing for the last some number of years), a dead end.

So it's a subtle thing, but if there were something very much like
Markdown but which was distinct from Markdown, then all of these other
implementations, and future projects, could choose to consider
themselves superset implementations of this other thing. And when
asked, "what does that thing have to say about one or another question
or issue", we'd actually get an answer.

I assume nearly everything would consider to identify itself as some
markdown variant. After all, Markdown is the brand name. Regardless,
the existence of something markdown-like but specifically identified
as not markdown, and with an responsive developer(s), would be a
monumental thing, literally years in the making.

Take it back a step, and work on it as a specification (similar to an
RFC), not an implementation at all. Work out the kinks at that level,
and build toward something like a draft standard, with at least a
couple of implementations that can be used to compare and contrast
behavior.

That's all I'll say about it on this mailing list, which I realize is
intended to discuss markdown.

Cheers,

Rob