Re: An Observation

[Aristotle Pagaltzis]

* Fletcher T. Penney  [2011-05-14 16:50]:
> I was looking at the original Markdown syntax specification,
> and became curious as to the last time Gruber posted anything
> to this discusion list.  According to some searches of the
> archives using some Google tricks, the last post I could find
> from him was in 2009.
>
> Just thought that was interesting.

An anatomy of a loss of interest:

2004  279
2005  153
2006   78
2007   25  (21 in the first half of the year)
20086  (2 in Feb; 4 in a row in mid-March)
20094  (in row in late Feb)
20100
20110

It’s not uncommon. Most of my own projects look like this…

I just wish we’d get one last release out of him that takes the
beta label off the last version and fixes the couple of small
things Gruber himself already agreed years ago should be changed
in certain ways. (Eg. not triggering emphasis on word-internal
underscores.)

Regards,
-- 
Aristotle Pagaltzis // 
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Re: An Observation

[Michel Fortin]

Le 2011-05-14 à 15:55, Aristotle Pagaltzis a écrit :

> * Fletcher T. Penney  [2011-05-14 16:50]:
>> I was looking at the original Markdown syntax specification,
>> and became curious as to the last time Gruber posted anything
>> to this discusion list.  According to some searches of the
>> archives using some Google tricks, the last post I could find
>> from him was in 2009.
>> 
>> Just thought that was interesting.
> 
> An anatomy of a loss of interest:
> 
>2004  279
>2005  153
>2006   78
>2007   25  (21 in the first half of the year)
>20086  (2 in Feb; 4 in a row in mid-March)
>20094  (in row in late Feb)
>20100
>20110
> 
> It’s not uncommon. Most of my own projects look like this…
> 
> I just wish we’d get one last release out of him that takes the
> beta label off the last version and fixes the couple of small
> things Gruber himself already agreed years ago should be changed
> in certain ways. (Eg. not triggering emphasis on word-internal
> underscores.)

You should add a new column for the total number of posts.

-- 
Michel Fortin
michel.for...@michelf.com
http://michelf.com/



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Re: An Observation

[Rob McBroom]

On May 14, 2011, at 3:55 PM, Aristotle Pagaltzis wrote:

> An anatomy of a loss of interest:
> 
>2004  279
>2005  153
>2006   78
>2007   25  (21 in the first half of the year)
>20086  (2 in Feb; 4 in a row in mid-March)
>20094  (in row in late Feb)
>20100
>20110

Hey! You didn’t use the Official Markdown Table Syntax for this?! ;)

-- 
Rob McBroom


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Re: An Observation

[Aristotle Pagaltzis]

* Michel Fortin  [2011-05-14 23:40]:
> Le 2011-05-14 à 15:55, Aristotle Pagaltzis a écrit :
>> An anatomy of a loss of interest:
>>
>>2004  279
>>2005  153
>>2006   78
>>2007   25  (21 in the first half of the year)
>>20086  (2 in Feb; 4 in a row in mid-March)
>>20094  (in row in late Feb)
>>20100
>>20110
>>
>> It’s not uncommon. Most of my own projects look like this…
>>
>> I just wish we’d get one last release out of him that takes
>> the beta label off the last version and fixes the couple of
>> small things Gruber himself already agreed years ago should be
>> changed in certain ways. (Eg. not triggering emphasis on
>> word-internal underscores.)
>
> You should add a new column for the total number of posts.

2004   279 / 938
2005   153 / 856
200678 / 542
200725 / 479  (21 in the first half of the year)
2008 6 / 508  (2 in Feb; 4 in a row in mid-March)
2009 4 / 235  (in row in late Feb)
2010 0 / 203
2011 0 / 141

Regards,
-- 
Aristotle Pagaltzis // 
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Re: An Observation

[Wander Nauta]

Hey all,

I took the liberty to make a graph out of that data. I'm no analyst,
but it seems Gruber's activity kinda follows the trend. You can see
the graph at 

Cheers!
Wander

On Sun, May 15, 2011 at 16:36, Aristotle Pagaltzis  wrote:
> * Michel Fortin  [2011-05-14 23:40]:
>> Le 2011-05-14 à 15:55, Aristotle Pagaltzis a écrit :
>>> An anatomy of a loss of interest:
>>>
>>>    2004  279
>>>    2005  153
>>>    2006   78
>>>    2007   25  (21 in the first half of the year)
>>>    2008    6  (2 in Feb; 4 in a row in mid-March)
>>>    2009    4  (in row in late Feb)
>>>    2010    0
>>>    2011    0
>>>
>>> It’s not uncommon. Most of my own projects look like this…
>>>
>>> I just wish we’d get one last release out of him that takes
>>> the beta label off the last version and fixes the couple of
>>> small things Gruber himself already agreed years ago should be
>>> changed in certain ways. (Eg. not triggering emphasis on
>>> word-internal underscores.)
>>
>> You should add a new column for the total number of posts.
>
>    2004   279 / 938
>    2005   153 / 856
>    2006    78 / 542
>    2007    25 / 479  (21 in the first half of the year)
>    2008     6 / 508  (2 in Feb; 4 in a row in mid-March)
>    2009     4 / 235  (in row in late Feb)
>    2010     0 / 203
>    2011     0 / 141
>
> Regards,
> --
> Aristotle Pagaltzis // 
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Re: An Observation

[Christian Sciberras]

I'm not sure the posts total is a valid metric. It may be just that there's
no room left for new features.
At this point, maybe rather than focusing on the format features, you/we
might want to consider other areas, such as "where can it be used?" or
"where would it work better than the current solution?"
To answer the latter, I'm starting to use Markdown in place of Creole in my
personal wiki solution (I was actually using Creole in the beginning).

Oh and by the way, I'm new here :)

Oh, and while at it, I'd like to thank Monsieur Fortin for the excellent
piece of software he did (I'm talking about MarkDownExtra).
Even though it's getting a bit dated, it still performs well. Not to
mention, very clean and well documented code.

Cheers,
Christian Sciberras.
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Re: An Observation

[Dr. Drang]

A bit of Kremlinology:

About a month ago, I tweeted that I was still hoping—perhaps in
vain—for some sign from inscrutable Mr. Gruber.

https://twitter.com/#!/drdrang/status/56175149489205248

He replied with this

https://twitter.com/#!/gruber/status/56399420446609408

--
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Re: An Observation

[Seumas Mac Uilleachan]

On 16/05/11 10:18 PM, Dr. Drang wrote:

A bit of Kremlinology:

About a month ago, I tweeted that I was still hoping—perhaps in
vain—for some sign from inscrutable Mr. Gruber.

https://twitter.com/#!/drdrang/status/56175149489205248

He replied with this

https://twitter.com/#!/gruber/status/56399420446609408

--
Dr. Drang
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lol

A) The rules produce inconsistent results.

B) That's because you don't understand the rules.

A) But when I apply the rules in certain cases I get nonsensical results.

B) That's because you don't understand how to apply the rules. When you 
become one with the rules there is no inconsistency. When all the world 
knows _emphasis_ as _emphasis_, only then is there **bold**.


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Re: An Observation

[David Parsons]

On May 16, 2011, at 7:42 PM, Seumas Mac Uilleachan wrote:


On 16/05/11 10:18 PM, Dr. Drang wrote:

A bit of Kremlinology: [...]



lol


A) The rules produce inconsistent results.


In rare edge conditions, yes.  But the operative word here is
*rare*;  if they happened all the time, people would be screaming
much more loudly that they are now (and, really, it seems that a
lot of the complaints about Mr. Gruber not continually futzing with
the language is coming from the obnoxious open source belief that
if people aren't continually tweaking the code it's dead.)

As an implementer, I'm *very* happy that the language has become
stable; this means I get to spend my coding time fixing bugs instead
of chasing the latest "I got bored, so I rewrote everything" release.
(something I can't say for some of the extensions I try to support,
which have silently morphed since I copied them.)

-david parsons
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Re: An Observation

[Fletcher T. Penney]

On Mon, May 16, 2011 at 11:16 PM, David Parsons  
wrote:

>    As an implementer, I'm *very* happy that the language has become
> stable; this means I get to spend my coding time fixing bugs instead
> of chasing the latest "I got bored, so I rewrote everything" release.
> (something I can't say for some of the extensions I try to support,
> which have silently morphed since I copied them.)


True.  But it is nice when bugs get fixed that have been known about
for 5+ years. Or features that were suggested and then never
implemented, forcing every other version to implement them in their
own way (e.g. footnotes)


F-

-- 
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fletc...@fletcherpenney.net
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Re: An Observation

[Seumas Mac Uilleachan]

I was commenting on the Gruber comment, not making a real-world 
observation. I have used a few different implementations and the results 
are consistent except for the edge cases. However, there ARE edge cases 
where results are not consistent with common expectations (typically 
from users who do understand the rules), and are indeed discussed in 
great detail on this list. Most users here would prefer that the 
expectations took precedence. Gruber's comment indicates otherwise.


The "compalints about Mr Gruber" seem to me to be more along the lines 
of users wanting extra features (like tables, footnotes, etc) or wanting 
edge cases made more consistent, with Mr Gruber being quite content with 
the status quo and not even bothering to comment on the feature requests 
or edge cases. Since he is deemed to be the BDFL of markdown nothing 
therefore changes. Implementers then have the conuntrum of either 
literally following what Gruber's markdown does or following what common 
expecations want. Added features become individual enhancements with no 
central authority. In essence, each implementation becomes a fork of 
markdown. Forks tend to diverge, making interoperability problematic.


Personally, I am quite content with the current feature set of markdown, 
which probably explains why I have a very low posting rate here. I don't 
use tables or footnotes very often so I don't miss them but I can 
understand the need for them.


On 16/05/11 11:16 PM, David Parsons wrote:


On May 16, 2011, at 7:42 PM, Seumas Mac Uilleachan wrote:


On 16/05/11 10:18 PM, Dr. Drang wrote:

A bit of Kremlinology: [...]



lol


A) The rules produce inconsistent results.


In rare edge conditions, yes.  But the operative word here is
*rare*;  if they happened all the time, people would be screaming
much more loudly that they are now (and, really, it seems that a
lot of the complaints about Mr. Gruber not continually futzing with
the language is coming from the obnoxious open source belief that
if people aren't continually tweaking the code it's dead.)

As an implementer, I'm *very* happy that the language has become
stable; this means I get to spend my coding time fixing bugs instead
of chasing the latest "I got bored, so I rewrote everything" release.
(something I can't say for some of the extensions I try to support,
which have silently morphed since I copied them.)

-david parsons
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Re: An Observation

[David Parsons]

On May 18, 2011, at 12:22 PM, Rob Reed wrote:


Whenever there is an edge case, or new idea, that leads to,

What does Markdown have to say about this?


   There's a dingus on daringfireball; that's the place to go for
edge cases that aren't described in the documentation.  If there
was money in it, someone could use the existing documentation and
the dingus to write a hideously exhaustive language specification.

   -david parsons
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Re: Re: An Observation

[bucephalus . org]

Dear Markdown enthusiasts,

As a pretty new member of the Markdown society, I'd like to make use of a  
nice newbie privilege, namely to ask a naive question:
Wouldn't it be nice to have an (open) organization/committee/authority that  
is able to fix a current recommendation on the language?
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Re: Re: An Observation

[Rob Reed]

This is starting to seem like a daddy issue. Papa Gruber is never
going to show Markdown the attention many of us think it deserves. The
reason doesn't really matter. Maybe because Markdown works well enough
as-is. Maybe because he has better things to do. Maybe because
Markdown is perfect.

One thing he has done is make it perfectly clear where he stands on
the issue(s). The question is where to go from here.

Personally, I'd like to see someone fork it, label the new project
'markdown-like', and get on with it. Given the way Markdown is
written, the idea of perfect compatibility isn't practical, and
arguably not even desirable anyway. Steer clear of co-opting the
original syntax outright, and you're fine.

Technology evolves. I don't know why lightweight markup syntaxes
deserve some special exception. In fact, with all due respect, it's
more than a little arrogant for anyone to insist that they got it
perfect the first time (1.0.1).

The idea of Markdown, not the implementation, is what's special. The
existing syntax is serviceable and so should be kept.

If someone released a new project with a markdown-like syntax, people
familiar with markdown would know what to expect. If the edge cases
differed, well that's to be expected. (It's not Markdown after all).
People unfamiliar with Markdown wouldn't know the difference.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents. I've been on this list for literally years.
During that time I learned how to program and even went to school and
picked up a grad degree in CS, and this debate hasn't budged a bit.

I'd like to thank everyone who continues to think about Markdown for
their time and efforts.

Cheers,

Rob


On Tue, May 17, 2011 at 4:44 PM,   wrote:
> Dear Markdown enthusiasts,
>
> As a pretty new member of the Markdown society, I'd like to make use of a
> nice newbie privilege, namely to ask a naive question:
> Wouldn't it be nice to have an (open) organization/committee/authority that
> is able to fix a current recommendation on the language?
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Re: Re: An Observation

[Lou Quillio]

On Tue, May 17, 2011 at 5:18 PM, Rob Reed  wrote:

> Personally, I'd like to see someone fork it, label the new project
> 'markdown-like', and get on with it.

In practical terms, isn't this what the superset implementations do?
It's not forking per se, but they do "get on with it."  kramdown does
everything I need, and I use python-markdown Extra in production [1]
with no more than a few one-off preprocessing tweaks in my stack.
I've probably worn the tread off ten copies of PME over the years.  ;)

Who needs markdown.pl when there are next-gen tools to scratch any
itch and that ship with batteries included?  Either I'll never
understand the grousing, or folks don't get that any Markdown
transformer is *part* of one's toolchain.  Maybe a big part, depending
on what you're doing, but god invented sed for a reason.

LQ


[1]: http://www.webmproject.org/


-- 
Lou Quillio
http://quillio.com/
pub...@quillio.com
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Re: Re: An Observation

[Albert Skye]

One can certainly imagine a benefit to the commons if Markdown (and this 
discussion list) were not frustrated by Gruber's shadow, but it is just a name. 
Whatever it may be called, its associated dialogue and development need not 
wither in that shadow.

Making core Markdown consistent may be easy enough but trying to converge the 
various extensions on a common standard seems more difficult. Extensions 
address the question of limited scope, and if they are to grow useful, it seems 
reasonable to inform them with a more abstract purpose; e.g., enriching plain 
text with logical structure, rather than making macros for html.

askye
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Re: Re: An Observation

[Rob Reed]

I agree that there are a lot of implementations that have "gotten on
with it" in the sense that they're being actively developed, and their
authors are trying to tackle some of the issues that exist with the
original implementation (and the somewhat vague description of how
Markdown is supposed to behave).

LQ > isn't this what the superset implementations do?

The problem is that these things are all described as some form of Markdown.

For example, 'superset implementations' begs the question,

Superset of what, exactly?

Whenever there is an edge case, or new idea, that leads to,

What does Markdown have to say about this?

The answer to that question is always absolutely nothing (or at least
nothing for the last some number of years), a dead end.

So it's a subtle thing, but if there were something very much like
Markdown but which was distinct from Markdown, then all of these other
implementations, and future projects, could choose to consider
themselves superset implementations of this other thing. And when
asked, "what does that thing have to say about one or another question
or issue", we'd actually get an answer.

I assume nearly everything would consider to identify itself as some
markdown variant. After all, Markdown is the brand name. Regardless,
the existence of something markdown-like but specifically identified
as not markdown, and with an responsive developer(s), would be a
monumental thing, literally years in the making.

Take it back a step, and work on it as a specification (similar to an
RFC), not an implementation at all. Work out the kinks at that level,
and build toward something like a draft standard, with at least a
couple of implementations that can be used to compare and contrast
behavior.

That's all I'll say about it on this mailing list, which I realize is
intended to discuss markdown.

Cheers,

Rob
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Re: Re: An Observation

[Arno Hautala]

I don't really have much opinion on this discussion. It seems to me
that Gruber is happy with what Markdown does and doesn't see a need
for active work on the project. Certainly that torch has been taken up
by the many other implementations. His alleged response regarding
GitHub Flavored Markdown seems to indicate that he's content with this
development path.

However, if there was anything that did warrant him making at least
one final clear post regarding Markdown, his views on the project, and
some sort of direction or "blessing" regarding its future, it's his
Linked List post today: [Markdown is the new Word
5.1](http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/05/19/markdown-word-51).

-- 
arno  s  hautala    /-|   a...@alum.wpi.edu

pgp b2c9d448
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