Markdown turned a significant a part of how I wrote. The simplicity and suppleness meant that I spotted the dream of writing as soon as, working anyplace. Nevertheless, this has led to some ambiguity. Gruber would most likely say it was by design. All through the Markdown documentation, it focuses on the Markdown syntax quite than, say, the ensuing HTML. Its Perl script would not help HTML class names or identifiers, for instance, so you’ll be able to’t add them to the generated HTML. In keeping with the logic of the unique Markdown script, in order for you full management over the HTML output, you will want to jot down in HTML.
This case is nice for Markdown customers, i.e. writers. It is much less good for programmers. In truth, it drives them loopy. Programmers do not like ambiguity. This goes in opposition to a lot of what programming is all about. As a author who makes use of Markdown, I like that I can select the model that most accurately fits my wants. As a programmer, I hate that once I create one thing, I’ve to make the identical resolution that then impacts all of the individuals who use my completed product. Perhaps I did not help some specific extension they anticipated as a result of they all the time used the identical Markdown parser and assumed that characteristic was out there.
If that wasn’t sufficient, there are additionally some ambiguities within the syntax. For instance, asterisks are used for single italic (*sure*) and double daring (**sure**). Up to now so good. However what ought to occur in case you write **sure* sure**? Ought to it’s supplied like* this? Or perhaps like this*? There isn’t any manner of figuring out; whoever writes the parser should make this resolution.
Furthermore, not like most wildly profitable code snippets, Markdown isn’t publicly hosted on the code sharing web site du jour. It would not have lots of of individuals contributing to it, and the final time the unique Perl script was up to date was in 2004. It additionally rubs programmers the unsuitable manner. We’re a vocal group; issues outdoors the clique are seen with suspicion.
due to this fact, an try was made to take away ambiguities in Markdown and convey it into line with coding dogma. Some programmers received collectively and created CommonMark, which makes decisions that the unique Markdown script would not, and got here up with what its creators consider is the one right strategy to do it.
CommonMark supplied consolation. It is on Github. It has a dialogue discussion board. It appears to be an lively undertaking. I’ve by no means personally included CommonMark in a undertaking, however it’s the parsers that convert your Markdown to HTML on widespread websites like Stack Overflow, Github, and Reddit. (To eradicate asterisk ambiguity, for instance, underline is proposed for italics, asterisk is for daring.) Presumably, CommonMark’s builders take into account this successful.
But it surely’s not Markdown. Not in identify, and I might argue not in spirit.
Across the time the CommonMark effort was taking place, software program developer Dave Wiener 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. But it surely additionally jogged my memory of the true essence of free software program. All of us have a proper to it: utilizing it, adapting it, even branching out from it.
Whether or not Gruber supposed it that manner or not, Markdown actually belongs to everybody, and there’s no normal. I am utilizing a really outdated model of Markdown for Python. Apparently Gruber remains to be utilizing his Perl script. Different individuals use different variations. It is messy. It’s ambiguous. It is human.
And this, in any case, is the Method.