As the implementer of Python-Markdown (the most popular python implementation by far with many thousands of downloads - no way to know how many users) I would have to agree completely with Michel Fortin.
This is something I do in my free time. I have an implementation that works for me and I don't have the interest, desire or time to refactor it for some new standard. Fixing a few edge cases - sure, but that's about it. Of course, if someone wants to put together a more complete test suite, I'm open to using it to address those edge cases - but only if they are in **complete** agreement with the existing syntax rules. Oh and for the record, I consider PHP Markdown Extra to the canonical standard for "Extra". Any additional add-ons outside of that are either third party extensions (using our API) that we don't ship or included extensions we do ship because **I** had a need for them. If I don't need it, I don't want to maintain it. Finally, even if I had the time (which I don't) I have no interest in participating in a design-by-committee process. And... If I ever hear another suggestion to add a doctype I will forget I never heard of this Committee/group/whatever-you-call-it. On Wed, Nov 21, 2012 at 12:04 PM, Michel Fortin <michel.for...@michelf.ca> wrote: > Le 2012-11-20 à 20:36, marbux <mar...@gmail.com> a écrit : > >> "Every MD implementation would have to have two behaviours, set either >> by a command line flag, a configuration file, or a preference if used >> with a GUI. One behaviour would be the individual behavior so that >> the followers of that implementation wouldn't be left in the lurch. >> One would be the standard behavior." >> >> I think the behavioral switch could be handled automatically if the >> standardized version has its its own doctype declaration and profile >> header. If the doc has the doctype declaration, then process the doc >> as the standardized version of markdown; if not, then apply the >> implementation's unique default processing. > > If your idea of an improved Markdown is one that starts with a doctype, I'm > afraid it won't get very far (with users and implementers alike). > > >> Bridging the A11Y gap is in my view a major >> incentive for MD implementers to participate in the working group and >> to implement its deliverables. This is a legal requirement for web >> sites at least in the U.S. and E.U. Although enforcement has been lax >> so far, there is no guarantee that enforcement won't be ramped up >> later.) > > I think you're mistaken about exactly who are the implementers. Most of us > implemented Markdown for our own needs, then shared the code so other could > use it. Then did some maintenance on the code in our spare time (at least > some did). If any of us had this legal requirement to satisfy, or too many > users nagging for this, it'd already been done. Changing the output is a > piece of cake by the way. > > So feel free to suggest improvements to the output. But I doubt very much > it'll have any effect beyond changing the output for some willing > implementers. > > The reason most people wants a spec is to help various implementations > interpret Markdown text the same way, and that is the hard problem. That's > the problem that would require long discussions -- if not negotiations -- > especially because it is likely to require near complete reimplementation > from many of us (because various implementations have very dissimilar parsing > models currently). > > I, personally, don't have the time for this. As it is now, I barely have the > time to do maintenance work on PHP Markdown and PHP Markdown Extra. PHP > Markdown and its Extra counterpart probably have thousands of users, if not > more (I have no way to measure that), but my spare time doesn't scale with > the number of users and I have plenty of more interesting things to do in my > spare time. > > >>> The exception to that is support for the one feature that is likely to be >>> added which has no direct support in HTML, precisely because of that lack >>> of direct expressibility in HTML, namely footnotes. (Or has HTML 5 provided >>> a solution here (and one that isn’t still evolving)?) " >> >> Kinda'/Sorta'. HTML 5 has the "aside" element that was originally >> stuck in with footnotes in mind. >> <http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/single-page.html#the-aside-element>. But >> it's really just a container that can be positioned on the page with >> CSS. No footnote/endnote-specific markup. (I'll omit my long rant >> about browser developers and their mindset when it comes to HTML spec >> footnote proposals. Let it suffice to observe that repurposing of >> content never enters their minds when the topic of footnotes comes >> up.) > > Some things of interest: > > Footnotes were discussed at length in 2008 at the WHATWG. > http://lists.whatwg.org/htdig.cgi/whatwg-whatwg.org/2008-April/014485.html > > I started to write a detailed spec in 2008 for a new Markdown Extra parsing > algorithm and document model (which includes a Markdown subset). Despite > being fun to work on, I stopped because it was too time-consuming. > <http://michelf.ca/specs/markdown-extra/> > > Pretty much at the same time, I made Babelmark for comparing various Markdown > implementations. Ian Hickson wrote a similar tool to see how browsers were > parsing HTML snippets to help build the parsing spec for HTML. I figured it'd > help to have something similar for Markdown. > <http://babelmark.bobtfish.net> > > John MacFarlane rewrote it as Babelmark 2 a few months ago, with more > up-to-date versions of the implementations. It's really great. > <http://johnmacfarlane.net/babelmark2/?text=aasdf> > > - - - > > If I had to "fix" Markdown today, I'd radically change to a cheap approach. > I'd take the few worse cases from the Babelmark 2 FAQ, try to come up with a > "right" way to parse these, put them in a test suite and try to convince > other implementations conform to that test suite. Even that would probably be > a hard sell to me, and probably others. I'm pretty picky about what's "right" > and "wrong" in Markdown. > > > -- > Michel Fortin > michel.for...@michelf.ca > http://michelf.ca/ > > _______________________________________________ > Markdown-Discuss mailing list > Markdown-Discuss@six.pairlist.net > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/markdown-discuss -- ---- \X/ /-\ `/ |_ /-\ |\| Waylan Limberg _______________________________________________ Markdown-Discuss mailing list Markdown-Discuss@six.pairlist.net http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/markdown-discuss
