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A Markdown File Should Just Open (joshuamorris.info)
submitted 1 day ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (5 children)

I'm not sure why you're criticizing the article by mentioning nuances as if they didn't also mention them in the article...

The point is that when they average person double clicks an MD file, it should probably open and display.

They're also like a bazillion different PDF and TXT formats, but viewers for them are rather ubiquitous.

You might say that nobody uses PDF viewers because they just opened them in a browser. Well, that's also a suitable approach for MD.

The support doesn't have to be comprehensive. I don't think they're asking for the God of all viewers and editors that supports every different styling and switches between them automatically.

The idea is that if you send someone a markdown file, they should be able to read it without having to go into a menu and opening with a text editor. You know, like Normies do with a bunch of far more complex standards already...

My guess is that this is because Markdown is mainly used by technical folk, and they're fucking stupid when it comes to end-user experience and just haven't considered it much. And the other reason is that the big players would rather push their proprietary formats so they don't want to see adoption of Markdown.

The author is right. Widespread, ubiquitous support is far overdue for such a simple format. Your remarks about cellphones not opening text files isn't a great argument against not opening markdown files; frankly, I think it's absurd that they don't, and that should be pointed out rather than used as an example of why we shouldn't bother for MD. If an OS shipped on a floppy drive could have a text editor out of the box, I'm pretty sure your fancy multi-gigabyte smartphone in $current_year could do it too.

I swear, these comments are depressingly stupid. Imagine arguing about this for any other format...

Yes, markdown should be more accessible and its files should be easier to use. Why? Because everybody uses it already, even if they don't know what it is. That's how ubiquitous it is, and supporting it out of the box is what you're arguing against. It's hard to comprehend. Are you employed by Microsoft?

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  • [–] 10 points 23 hours ago (3 children)

    At some point my sister had to write a letter of motivation for a job application - a headline and some text, that's all - and she mentioned to me in passing how much money she would have to pay for a Microsoft Word license in order to produce this document.

    Obviously I showed her a free alternative, but the fact remain that normal people have absolutely no idea how to use computers. Just being able to open a Markdown file and see the same level of formatting as what we casually drop in this comment section would be groundbreaking for them. Being able to edit it could potentially save them heaps of money.

    I suspect this explains why Markdown doesn't work intuitively on most operative systems. There's no money to be made from this degree of user control. Monetizing Markdown is hard as fuck.

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  • [–] 4 points 23 hours ago* (2 children)

    Yeah, it just confuses me why people here are arguing against the idea that markdown should be more accessible to the normal user. I read this the moment I woke up and it's been driving me a little mad. The formatting is literally one of the most ubiquitous things you can come across on the internet.

    I understand that maybe this is something Microsoft et al would not rather pursue because they have their own proprietary formats they want to push instead... But why was every Lemmy comment here attacking the article? Do we not like free and open source standards any more? Do we not want these things to succeed?

    Like, if you just want to say the author is a dumbass, then sure, but I don't understand why people are so aggressive against the idea of making Markdown easier to use...

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  • [–] 5 points 23 hours ago (1 child)

    I guess they like markdown precisely because you can open it in Notepad on a Windows 98 or whatever, read and edit to your hearts desire, and then save it and be on your way. Maybe they find that presenting it as something a little more user friendly runs the risk of at some point running into conflict with that level of portability.

    It's hard to understand the things people around here feel strongly about. I would certainly enjoy being able to send a markdown file to my colleagues instead of having to convert whatever note I'm taking into docx so that they can understand what a headline is. Even odt is not a real option as they'll introduce track changes or whatever in word and I won't be able to see the same document they sent me.

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  • [–] 3 points 23 hours ago*

    Your first paragraph makes a very good point. I could understand that as an impulsive motivation. Thanks.

    Yes, I also don't want Markdown turning into a binary format. Absolutely. In fairness, I can see the risk of that in some situations. e.g. my professional obsidian vaults are so heavy on JS and custom plugins that the render is significantly detached from the source text, using dynamic elements. I guess I could see an unfortunate world where people push into that. But I only really see that as if it is a complete replacement for other document formats, which I don't think it is. It's sort of like text++ rather than odt--

    I don't see markdown replacing advanced formats in all cases like that, but I think it's sufficient, even in its most basic forms, for the vast majority of people.

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  • [–] 1 point 23 hours ago

    The point is that when they average person double clicks an MD file, it should probably open and display.

    It does? I mean, I guess it depends on your OS and if there's an handler for .md files. My machine opens them fine. I don't know what the default is on windows. Handling a file extension with a smart default is really on the OS provider, though.

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