Because, like UNIX/Linux itself, worse is better: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worse_is_better - and perfect is the enemy of "good enough."

We want to encourage people to produce written output with minimal friction. Barriers to writing--and especially barriers to producing documentation--should be minimized. Writing well is difficult enough!

Markup is overhead. Complex markup is even more overhead. Markdown is the best compromise we know of today that provides just enough structure and typographic capability, while imposing very little cognitive load on the author.

Besides, if you need something more complicated these days, you can have your favorite AI agent do it.

▲ nostrademons 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It's also worth remembering that markdown tried very hard to encode conventions that were already used in Usenet, email, and other text media. A > to indicate a quote was widespread Usenet convention. Asterisks or underscores to indicate emphasis was also a common convention; both are legal because both were common. Double asterisk or double underscores to indicate really, really emphasizing something was also a common convention. So were asterisks to display a bulleted list, blank lines to separate paragraphs, and indenting 4+ spaces to write code.

It's a good example of "pave the path" design philosophy, where you do what users are already doing rather than trying to impose some platonic ideal of what the world should be like. And it works quite well at that.

▲ reaperducer 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

markdown tried very hard to encode conventions that were already used in Usenet, email, and other text media

For those of you who weren't there:

  *bold*

  _underline_

  ~strikethrough~

  /italics/

  > Quotation

  - list
  - list
  - list

I've been using these for almost half a century. They're much easier and more intuitive than Markdown. I see no compelling reason to change.

	▲	nostrademons 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Your quotation and list syntax should work out of the box in most Markdown flavors (HN has a very non-standard and crippled version - basically nothing other than italics, paragraphs, and code/preformatting works.) Strikethrough and bold are doubled to avoid common ambiguities. Your underline should technically work, but it comes out as an <em> (emphasis) tag, which is rendered as italics in most browsers.
	▲	dingaling 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		But Usenet style didn't have a trendy name, an 'inventor' or Github stars. So it didn't exist.

▲ singpolyma3 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Stepped right on the rake though because it uses sigils which were common, but requires they be used in uncommon ways (by doubling etc) which it why most chat UIs don't actually use markdown

	▲	packetlost 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Somehow basically only Discord gets it almost perfectly right though.

▲ wisemanwillhear 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The solution is sufficiently perfected with markdown. Just like new revolutionary technologies doesn't replace wheel technology.

▲ xigoi 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

For me, Markdown produces a lot of unnecessary cognitive load compared to other markup languages.

• I have to decide whether to use asterisks or underscores for bold and italic.

• I have to decide whether to use asterisks, hyphen-minuses, or plus signs for unordered lists.

• I have to remember all the various rules and edge cases about parsing.

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mh- 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> compared to other markup languages

I think it would be easier for me to appreciate your comment if you named some of these other languages. Markdown is the only standardized one I regularly come across that I type by hand, these days.

What are you contrasting to?

As for Markdown specifically- the only thing I regularly mix up is the syntax for links. I frequently reverse the [] and (). But that's just because I don't use it enough to have the muscle memory.

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xigoi 3 hours ago | parent [-]

> I think it would be easier for me to appreciate your comment if you named some of these other languages.

HTML? Also my markup language I created for myself, which is currently not published.

	▲	mkldd 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		my girlfriend goes to another school

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nxpnsv 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

1&2 just pick one, it doesn’t matter. 3 mostly you’re the parser… if you’re after accuracy there are better versions, but it sure is simple to read and write

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chrisweekly 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I suggest trying Obsidian for WYSIWYG markdown editing. It beats heck out of typing it raw and eliminates that cognitive load.

	▲	xigoi 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I don’t like WYSIWYG editing, as it makes the formatting invisible.

▲ recursivedoubts 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I came here to say this.