doesn't that make you wonder?

[Allan Odgaard]

On 20 Oct 2011, at 15:20, Sherwood Botsford wrote:


> […] If agreement is reached, then the group looks at variants 6,7,8,9 and

> inquires if they would like to join in this effort.


On 19 Oct 2011, at 02:27, John MacFarlane wrote:


> That said, if I were designing a "non-markup" language from scratch, there are

> many things I'd do differently.  I think there's an unoccupied sweet

> spot somewhere between markdown and reStructuredText.


I’d be much more interested in hearing what John has in mind.

I’m not optimistic about “fixing” the Markdown situation and I see little point in providing a migration path.

Take e.g. GitHub, they offer Markdown as one choice for their wikis, READMEs, etc. — you think a) they’ll update their C code to new strict rules that “we” agree on (and tell them to conform to, mind you, they already have their own flavor of Markdown) and b) have all existing Markdown text on GitHub updated to be compatible with the updated rules?

I see a bigger chance of filling the niche between Markdown and reStructuredText that John was alluding to, getting traction, and then see that as a new format added to their wiki (it already has several), and understood when READMEs have the proper extension.

Then we can also finally mandate a file extension: I suggest calling the new format “Markright” with “.mr” as file extension :)