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If markup is complicated, then the opposite of that complexity must be markdown
For developers, Markdown has long been the lingua franca of the tools we string together to accomplish our work.
But the truth is, most people today who make technology are actually still exceedingly normal, and quite generous. t’s just that they’ve been overshadowed by their bosses who are out of their minds and building rocket ships and siring hundreds of children and embracing overt white supremacy instead of making fun tools for helping you type text
Even AI uses markdown formatting under the hood.
It’s important for everyone to know that the Internet, and the tech industry, don’t run without the generosity and genius of regular people
The majority of the technical infrastructure of the Internet was created in this way. For free, often by people in academia, or as part of their regular work, with no promise of some big payday or getting a ton of credit.
10 reasons markdown won:
- it had a great brand
- it solved a real problem: too painful to write HTML, and a legible plain text is better
- built on behaviors that already existed
- mirrored RSS in its origin
- there was a community ready to help
- it had the right flavor for every different context, for example the Commonmark and Github-Flavored.
- Released at a time of change in behaviors and habits: You can get people to change their behaviors when they’re using a new tool, or adopting a new technology.
- Came right on the cusp of the build tool era: there were new at that day.
- Worked with view source
- Not encumbered in IP
