Virgin Markdown, HTML vs chad plain Text

Change my mind.

198 points · 70 comments · view on lemmy.world

70 Comments

folekaule@lemmy.world · 70 pts · 36d

I write plain text. I just happen to format it like markdown.

ilinamorato@lemmy.world · 51 pts · 36d (18 replies)

Markdown...is...plaintext, though?

r1ck@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 36d (1 reply)

yup but with more tricks

Blurntout@lemmy.ca · 22 pts · 36d

Markdown is text that can kick flip

LodeMike@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 35d (1 reply)

So is HTML

ilinamorato@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 35d

My only objection to that is that its source code isn't easily human-readable, like Markdown's is. The point of an .md file is that a human and a computer can both parse it just as easily as a native format.

Fmstrat@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 34d (13 replies)

Every programming language is plain text.

ilinamorato@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 33d (12 replies)

Not intended to be easily human-readable though.

Fmstrat@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 33d (11 replies)

Sure they are. They're intended to be as easy to read for a human as possible.

ilinamorato@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 33d (10 replies)

No. The primary purpose of programming languages is to be machine-readable first, human-readable second. The primary purpose of both markdown and plaintext is to be equally readable by both humans and machines.

Fmstrat@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 33d (9 replies)

Assembly, perhaps. But not every other language. Every other language's sole purpose is to be easier than assembly to read by humans, so it can be compiled or translated through an engine into something a machine can read.

Machines do not read Rust. Machines do not read C++. Machines do not read JavaScript. Humans do.

ilinamorato@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 32d (8 replies)

Machines do read Rust. Just because those machines are compiling the Rust code doesn't mean they aren't reading it. And every affordance the Rust devs included to make it easier for that compiler to do its job makes it harder for humans to read, but Markdown's affordances are equally helpful for humans as for computers; and they're designed to be so because they were adapted from shorthand that was already in use.

Fmstrat@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 32d

Debate all you want, but the literal first sentence on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programming_language

A programming language is an engineered language for expressing computer programs,[1] typically allowing software to be written in a human readable manner.

stepan@lemmy.cafe · 29 pts · 36d (4 replies)

you will change you mind yourself when your - key breaks from all the

--------------------------------------

HEADINGS

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zaphod@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 36d

ReST?

r1ck@sh.itjust.works · -3 pts · 36d (2 replies)

MD is lowkey overrated

smaximov@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 36d

I too find Org-mode markup superior.

MrKoyun@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 36d

Md is aweeesoooome. It's legit the only way I can think when I'm planning anything big enough to plan.

andyburke@fedia.io · 28 pts · 36d (7 replies)

I wouldn't dare try to understand the mind that thinks that Markdown is at all like html. 🤷‍♂️

r1ck@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 36d (4 replies)

They are both at the end of the day UTF-8 text.

sem@piefed.blahaj.zone · 9 pts · 36d

All we are is bytes in the wind

TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 36d (1 reply)

Your mom is Unicode Text.

decolo@piefed.social · 2 pts · 36d

you know who else--

andyburke@fedia.io · 2 pts · 36d

🤝

trem@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 5 pts · 36d

I mean, Markdown was specifically designed to be convertable to HTML. So, it is structurally rather similar. It's basically just a bunch of aliases for a subset of HTML tags.

Having said that, it is also designed to be plain text. You don't have to convert it, and even when you do convert it, there's a good chance that what you've written in plain text will look fine in converted Markdown as well.
For the purposes of this meme, I would certainly group it with plain text.

bricktror@programming.dev · 1 pts · 35d

Isn't markdown a strict superset of html though? As in any valid html is valid markdown. Not usually how it is used though and im not sure about how most markdown flavours handle it, but it is a "convenient" escape hatch

https://www.markdownlang.com/advanced/html.html

RisingSwell@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 26 pts · 36d (3 replies)

Markdown would be better if everyone using it used the same markdown. I swear no two places use it the same.

r1ck@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 36d

true though

NotAnonymousAtAll@feddit.org · 3 pts · 36d (1 reply)

We could have had that, but when some people who might have succeeded tried to establish a proper standard for Markdown in 2014 the original inventor threw a tantrum so they backed down and it never went anywhere.

https://blog.codinghorror.com/standard-markdown-is-now-common-markdown/

glitchdx@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 35d

This upsets me.

HexesofVexes@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 36d (2 replies)

LaTeX has entered the chat

r1ck@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 36d (1 reply)

kick him out.

far_university1990@reddthat.com · 4 pts · 35d

Sorry, he already embed into all scientific paper.

Una@europe.pub · 12 pts · 36d (3 replies)

Graphite pencil and paper is God

decolo@piefed.social · 3 pts · 36d

pointy stick and dirt clearing or gtfo

r1ck@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 36d

for real

eestileib@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 36d

All of my best work started on paper

cows_are_underrated@feddit.org · 10 pts · 36d (13 replies)

Behold the holy Grail of text structuring and formatting (as long as you don't want to deal with LaTeX): orgmode

zitrone@europe.pub · 6 pts · 36d (5 replies)

Typst, Perchance

victorz@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 36d (4 replies)

I need to get into Typst. Been hearing about it a lot for a good while.

INeedMana@piefed.zip · 4 pts · 35d (3 replies)

I checked Typst out a bit. It couldn't do a specific, niche thing I want to do but in general it felt really nice. Definitely feels newer than LaTeX and with less technical debt/baggage. A bit more limited but still nice

And for some reason it seems there's no community for Typst on Threadiverse

victorz@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 35d (2 replies)

Thank you for sharing! I haven't even looked at it yet — I imagine it's like a supercharged Markdown, with ways to interlink documents and that kind of jazz? Am I way off?

INeedMana@piefed.zip · 2 pts · 35d (1 reply)

I'd rather say it's a cross between the two. Because most of the text is written like MD but then it does have document settings and tables look like in LaTeX

victorz@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 35d

Looks beautiful, wow. Very simple. I so wish I had this through my uni days. LaTeX was pretty powerful but it was pretty painful sometimes as well.

sqauffle@slrpnk.net · 4 pts · 36d

The orgmode site doesn't display properly on my phone. I can't even scroll horizontally to read the text. 😂

decolo@piefed.social · 2 pts · 36d (5 replies)

emacs heretic! begone from this place!

cows_are_underrated@feddit.org · 2 pts · 36d (4 replies)

It is absolutely worth it learning it.

protogen420@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 36d (3 replies)

how do i use emacs without vim emulation

cows_are_underrated@feddit.org · 2 pts · 36d (2 replies)

If you want your vim keybindings inside emacs you can use evil mode

protogen420@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 36d (1 reply)

no, I meant how do I get used to using emacs without vim emulation in emacs (like evil)

cows_are_underrated@feddit.org · 1 pts · 35d

Just start using it? Watch some tutorials for the basic keybindings, copy a config from someone else and try to understand what's going on and from there on you can start building your own config. Theres also a ton of information available on how to do specific things.

LurkingLuddite@piefed.social · 6 pts · 36d (1 reply)

They're almost the same thing, so this kinda' hits like two people arguing over which shitbox $300 car they drive is faster...

r1ck@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 36d

bro has Luddite in his name

omniman@anarchist.nexus · 4 pts · 36d

Ngl plain txt is the best . But not for writing blog . Need something like # for headings and stuff . To make my blog portable i don't use mardow much just # for heading and # for tag

twinnie@feddit.uk · 4 pts · 36d (4 replies)

Markdown is so annoying. I wanted to record a command in Joplin and had the audacity to make it bold to highlight something. Pasted it into their terminal and it put a bunch of asterisks in. Thanks.

crunchy@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 5 pts · 36d (1 reply)

Try pasting commands into code blocks.

trem@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 36d

If they wanted to make a specific part of the command bold, that still wouldn't work.

Could underline the part, I guess, like this:

ls -la
   ###

(# starts a comment in shell syntax, so doesn't get run, in case someone pastes the whole thing.)

ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org · 2 pts · 36d

It does format text in the editor pane by default now but uses a big warning with a button to disable it.

However, the built-in code highlighter, much
like in many Lemmy frontends, highlights
some words/symbols depending on the default
language. Therefore, it's best to not use 
4 spaces at the start of each line for a code block.
Instead, this one starts with "```text" and 
ends with "```". No extra indents and I get
to specify the highlighting language!

Edit: Damn

trem@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 36d

Hmm, interesting. I always write Markdown unformatted, so where I put the asterisks in myself. So, that's a decent reality check, I guess.

dsilverz@catodon.rocks · 3 pts · 36d

(Trivia: the Assembly code I made for the last panel does work)

!memes@lemmy.world

chunes@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 35d

A quality text file is a bit of a lost art these days. I like looking through this archive of old text files from the 80s and 90s once in a while. http://textfiles.com/directory.html

Gonzako@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 36d

I do like me some htmx

someacnt@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 35d
[ removed ]
mhzawadi@lemmy.horwood.cloud · 1 pts · 36d

Have you seen glow?

It makes markdown look like it should on the terminal