You're missing the point, and you're missing it hard. Look at CSV. Do you want a repeat of that fiasco? That's a format with literally one feature, and yet in the wild it comes in so many varieties you must guess and configure with every CSV parser. We're in a unique situation here in that the progenitor of the format is alive and can appoint a successor to avoid that whole problem.
"But one of the goals of Markdown is to provided easy-to-use markup for text." This is in no way contradictory to the aim. The idea here is to standardize Markdown, not to replace it with XML.
"I think that people will get on board if it provides a clear advantage over Markdown as it exists as well as other markup formats." The clear advantage is that the parser won't have to guess what you meant and thus get it wrong. The clear advantage is that when you enter copy text from Github and paste it in a Reddit comment box it will come out looking the same. The clear advantage is that in ten years there is a flag for "Accept Standard Markdown only/Accept my weird extensions" to establish a baseline. The clear advantage is that your files won't have an expiration date. The clear advantage is that you won't spend months closing tickets and replying to emails entitled "Why is my formatting all fucked up?"
"Only geeks will complain about whether the successor of Markdown is deployed." Yes, and only geeks care about standards, because only geeks understand the immense difficulty that is supporting a family of mutually incompatible formats and protocols and therefore only geeks understand what standards actually do for them. Users may not care, but when shit breaks they have this unpleasant habit of blaming us and our work, and I find it frankly insane that any reasonable programmer could resist an effort to make their life and the lives of their comrades easier, practically for free.
"If enough people get behind this, it won't matter that Rockdown is a peer to Markdown." Have you ever worked with scientists? There is code in my codebase written in Fortran 77—and that code was written two years ago. Not everybody is interested in upgrading on your schedule. In fact, in many places, obeying the standard is the standard practice, and there is absolutely no interest in performing time-consuming comparisons to figure out independently what is technically superior to what or even what the options are. Standards are intrinsically valuable to these organizations, and you will inevitably find yourself tasked with dealing with them. You're essentially saying "Why declare a standard when we can just rely on word of mouth and let people figure it out?"
I hate to impugn a fellow HNer, but I really can't abide this sloppy, half-assed, incomplete thought. This initiative is obviously the right thing to do, or at least try to do. If you disagree, I curse and damn you to ten years of supporting incompatible highly-similar formats, after which I am certain you will see the utter pointlessness of it and the ease with which it can be averted and agree with me.
I'm not sure what point you're referring to that I'm missing. Here's my point:
People don't need to wait for Gruber to make a standard; Gruber doesn't hold enough power to prevent the adoption of a Markdown-like standard. The adoption of the standard will correlate with the value that it brings.
I am not saying the rest of the stuff you think that I am saying; I was just responding to your argument.
This initiative is obviously the right thing to do, or at least try to do.
I completely agree with this statement.
Feel free to impugn me. It is your right to; actually, it is your obligation to if the situation calls for it.
"But one of the goals of Markdown is to provided easy-to-use markup for text." This is in no way contradictory to the aim. The idea here is to standardize Markdown, not to replace it with XML.
"I think that people will get on board if it provides a clear advantage over Markdown as it exists as well as other markup formats." The clear advantage is that the parser won't have to guess what you meant and thus get it wrong. The clear advantage is that when you enter copy text from Github and paste it in a Reddit comment box it will come out looking the same. The clear advantage is that in ten years there is a flag for "Accept Standard Markdown only/Accept my weird extensions" to establish a baseline. The clear advantage is that your files won't have an expiration date. The clear advantage is that you won't spend months closing tickets and replying to emails entitled "Why is my formatting all fucked up?"
"Only geeks will complain about whether the successor of Markdown is deployed." Yes, and only geeks care about standards, because only geeks understand the immense difficulty that is supporting a family of mutually incompatible formats and protocols and therefore only geeks understand what standards actually do for them. Users may not care, but when shit breaks they have this unpleasant habit of blaming us and our work, and I find it frankly insane that any reasonable programmer could resist an effort to make their life and the lives of their comrades easier, practically for free.
"If enough people get behind this, it won't matter that Rockdown is a peer to Markdown." Have you ever worked with scientists? There is code in my codebase written in Fortran 77—and that code was written two years ago. Not everybody is interested in upgrading on your schedule. In fact, in many places, obeying the standard is the standard practice, and there is absolutely no interest in performing time-consuming comparisons to figure out independently what is technically superior to what or even what the options are. Standards are intrinsically valuable to these organizations, and you will inevitably find yourself tasked with dealing with them. You're essentially saying "Why declare a standard when we can just rely on word of mouth and let people figure it out?"
I hate to impugn a fellow HNer, but I really can't abide this sloppy, half-assed, incomplete thought. This initiative is obviously the right thing to do, or at least try to do. If you disagree, I curse and damn you to ten years of supporting incompatible highly-similar formats, after which I am certain you will see the utter pointlessness of it and the ease with which it can be averted and agree with me.