Markdown turned a core a part of how I wrote. The simplicity and adaptability meant I might reside the dream of write as soon as, run anyplace. It did result in some ambiguity, although. Gruber would in all probability say that is by design. His emphasis all through the Markdown documentation is on the syntax of Markdown, not—say—the ensuing HTML. His Perl script doesn’t assist HTML class names or IDs, for instance, so you may’t add these to the generated HTML. By the logic of the unique Markdown script, if you would like full management over the HTML output, you then’d want to jot down in HTML.
This case is nice for Markdown customers: that’s, writers. It’s much less nice for programmers. Actually, it drives them loopy. Programmers don’t like ambiguity. It goes in opposition to a lot of what programming is about. As a author utilizing Markdown, I like that I can decide whichever specific model is finest suited to my wants. As a programmer, I hate that after I construct one thing I’ve to make this similar resolution, which then impacts all of the individuals who use my completed product. Perhaps I didn’t assist some particular extension they have been anticipating as a result of they’ve at all times used the identical Markdown parser and assume that characteristic is accessible.
If this weren’t unhealthy sufficient, there are additionally some ambiguities within the syntax. For instance, asterisks are used for italics when singular (*like this*) and daring when doubled (**like this**). To this point so good. However what ought to occur should you write **like* this**? Ought to that be rendered like* this? Or perhaps like this*? There’s no option to know; whoever is writing the parser has to make that call.
What’s extra, not like most extraordinarily profitable items of code, Markdown will not be publicly hosted on the code-sharing web site du jour. It doesn’t have a whole lot of individuals contributing to it, and the final time the unique Perl script was up to date was 2004. This too rubs programmers the mistaken manner. We’re a cliquish bunch; issues exterior the clique are seen with suspicion.
A couple of decade in the past, there was an effort to get rid of the ambiguities in Markdown and convey it into line with coding dogma. Some programmers bought collectively and created CommonMark, which makes the alternatives the unique Markdown script doesn’t and got here up with what its creators assume is the One Proper Technique to Do It.
CommonMark supplied consolation. It’s on Github. It has a dialogue discussion board. It appears to be an energetic venture. I’ve by no means personally integrated CommonMark right into a venture, however its parsers are what convert your Markdown to HTML on such fashionable websites as Stack Overflow, Github, and Reddit. (To get rid of the asterisk ambiguity, for instance, it proposed underscore for italics, asterisk for daring.) Presumably the builders behind CommonMark take into account it a hit.
Nevertheless it’s not Markdown. Not in identify, and I might argue not in spirit.
Across the time the CommonMark effort was occurring, the software program developer Dave Winer instructed me one thing I nonetheless take into consideration: Markdown belongs to everybody who makes use of it. That is actually true due to the license. Nevertheless it additionally jogged my memory of the actual level of free software program. All of us have a say in it: through the use of it, by adapting it, even by forking it.
Whether or not Gruber supposed it this fashion or not, Markdown does belong to everybody, and there’s no customary. I exploit a really outdated model of Markdown for Python. Gruber presumably nonetheless makes use of his Perl script. Different folks use different variations. It’s messy. It’s ambiguous. It’s human.
And this, ultimately, is the Means.
