accordionclown

rest (restructured text) has been used for python documentation for a very long time. so -- especially for that particular usage -- it's much more functional and clearly documented and consistent and free of edge-cases than (the far-too-numerous flavors of) markdown.

on the negative side, there aren't many quality authoring-tools for rest.

markdown has a very high profile. but it's questionable whether it deserves it. (i wouldn't say that it doesn't. but i wouldn't say that it does, either.)

another option you could look at is asciidoc. it isn't clearly better or worse than those other two systems, but it is different, and you might end up liking it better. (or you might not.)

light-markup systems are much like static blog systems. there's a lot of them, but it's hard to decide among them, and many people end up inventing their own variant that serves their own individual use-cases.

dean allen never got the respect or the credit he deserved.

where most people are trying to "monetize" the web, his focus was on making it more "humane". it's still not too late to see that he was right.

very interesting history, jesse. been observing your work for a long time. loved the reference to the canon cat (not "cannon"). also tickled by the idea of downloading a .pdf from "ftp.apple.asimov.net" with "jefraskin" in its name; 2017 giving props to the past. never really understood the benefit of "folding" per se, since anything not shown on the screen is "out of sight" anyway. albeit an outline view is great, especially when you can click into any section. nonetheless, love the fact that you (and others) continue experimenting with the plain-text writing interface. keep on keeping on.

i've noticed that, whenever an adult enters the picture, hobbes turns from a bundle of energy into a paper tiger.

i'm sure very few people care that you and i disagree.

gruber didn't "invent" markdown.

he took the idea from dean allen, who had created "textile" (which was featured in the movabletype blogging-system gruber used).

gruber reworked that idea slightly, then released it with a catchy name, and somehow received all the credit.

as for gruber's blog, i would say it is evenhanded and informative, albeit focused on apple and its products. the blog is certainly not "fawning", and i think most apple-buyers feel no need to "justify" their purchases.

much of the time, you want the output to sync to the input.

but oftentimes you don't.

the trick is finding a good way to walk that tightrope.

a separate preview is unnecessary for some users, it's true.

but when you're using a full range of complex features, it is.

and when something isn't displaying the way you intend, you often need to view the input _with_ the output, to see exactly what's causing the problem and to test possible solutions.

i also found that, while typora is good at showing what the output looks like in a browser-window which is sized exactly like the one you are typing in, it's less informative at showing what the content will look like in a .pdf or a .mobi or an .epub.

and, just for the sake of completion here, typora also became very unresponsive when i tested it with large files. again, not everyone will have that problem, but some users definitely will.

but i'll give typora another go, and see if it's improved since i last tried it...

that link is a generic one, to an account's own gists. it is not a link to your gists, _except_ for you.

there's more than enough room for everyone.

indeed, there will be demand for more/different products even after both of these competitors maximize their reach.

maria wants to have a browser that runs smoothly even when it has as many as 5000 tabs open.

a proposal is made...

"we built a workflow that allowed one person to ruin the company."

that's one heckuva excuse, dude.

it's great seeing a poem by a poet i know.

for the record, jeffrey mcdaniel is also a fantastic performer, so if you get a chance to see him recite, don't sleep on it.