a case for native bounding asterisk support

[Jason Davies]

Just to throw in another voice saying this is never going to work: 
people talk as if these things are centuries old traditions but they're 
not. When people used typewriters, they underlined to mean bold; 
asterisks have been used in a number of ways since the invention and no 
one has ever had the power to dictate how things should be. I was 
using*to imply emphasis or a change of register long before markdown 
came along. Using italics is a way of changing the register of the text, 
and you still have to interpret that within the context of the genre you 
are writing in.  in poetry it means one thing, in academic texts another 
and so on.  Better to explain what they mean in your particular context 
as and when it arises than to try to move the whole world an inch to the 
left.

  I'm struggling to understand why people can't escape asterisks like 
\*this\*  if they want them to be visible (it will be interesting to see 
if my markdown emailer passes that on safely to you all!

On 4 Jun 2020, at 3:22, Christian Perry wrote:

> One thing I'll add, if that's alright, when it comes to transitioning 
> standards.
>
>
>
> It wouldn't have to break anything to update MD syntax: simply present 
> it as a new version, and note that certain conventions from old 
> version are being deprecated. Put it on LTS and give the industry 15 
> years to adapt (I'm serious about this).
>
>
>
> Companies who want v1.1, with native bounding asterisk support, can 
> transition sooner if they want.


Cheers,

Jason