
Ask HN: Can we upgrade vanilla Markdown? - peterhadlaw
So markdown is loosely defined somewhere on the web and it seems like the syntax is set. However, couldn&#x27;t we start versioning it and incorporate the new features that these alternate flavors provide?
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anigbrowl
You could, but the point of something like Markdown is its extreme simplicity
and predictability. The more features you add the more unwieldy it becomes.
Look at HTML - great that you have have super-rich documents, but the downside
is that 99.99% of what's on the web is way overdone. You can't read news
articles without downloading cast amounts of cruft.

There used to be a joke that all program specifications expand until they
include the ability to send and receive email, and I'd suggest that today all
markup specifications expand until they include the ability to to display
streaming video.

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orangeshark
Checkout CommonMark [http://commonmark.org](http://commonmark.org)

The spec is still not final. Github is going to base their flavor ontop of it
[https://githubengineering.com/a-formal-spec-for-github-
markd...](https://githubengineering.com/a-formal-spec-for-github-markdown/)

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accordionclown
there are 89 flavors of markdown.

there will never be a standard markdown.

and not just because of xkcd927...

if you have a muddy puddle, you can't make it clear by adding more dirt. you
have to replace all the muddy water with clear water.

markdown needs to be abandoned, and replaced with a superior version of light-
markup.

(unfortunately, neither restructured-text nor asciidoc is superior.)

sooner or later -- probably later -- the tech sphere will see the need to do
that replacement. until then, it would be a major disservice to assert
markdown upon the world-at-large.

