Thoughts On Markdown

I suspect that the prominence of Markdown has held back innovation and progress for digital content.

Ah, ok ok. As a lover of markdown, I’m here to see how my entire world might be upended. Lay it on me:

does [git + markdown] really represent the best workflow for people who are primarily working with content? Isn’t this a case where developer experience has trumped editor experience…?

Embedding specific presentation concerns in your content has increasingly become a liability and something that will get in the way of adapting, iterating, and moving quickly with your content. It locks it down in ways that are much more subtle than having content in a database.

I can agree with some of the sentiments in this article on a certain level.

But there’s another plane of understanding here where I could argue that digital content is cheapened by the promise of quick economical benefit. Much of the content on the web is prepackaged filler, not meant to sustain but merely fill.

What makes markdown compelling, to me, is less about the syntax and more about the focus on the content. Write good, interesting, compelling content and people will read it. You have to do that when all you have is, in essence, plain text.

That said, I can also get behind this idea:

I wish we could direct more energy into making accessible and delightful editorial experiences that produces modern portable content formats.