Seong Jae Lee
2.9 KiB
Markdown
Markdown is a text-to-HTML conversion tool for web writers. Markdown allows you to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, then convert it to structurally valid XHTML (or HTML).
Thus, “Markdown” is two things: (1) a plain text formatting syntax; and (2) a software tool, written in Perl, that converts the plain text formatting to HTML. See the Syntax page for details pertaining to Markdown’s formatting syntax. You can try it out, right now, using the online Dingus.
The overriding design goal for Markdown’s formatting syntax is to make it as readable as possible. The idea is that a Markdown-formatted document should be publishable as-is, as plain text, without looking like it’s been marked up with tags or formatting instructions. While Markdown’s syntax has been influenced by several existing text-to-HTML filters, the single biggest source of inspiration for Markdown’s syntax is the format of plain text email.
Getting the Gist of Markdown's Formatting Syntax
This page offers a brief overview of what it’s like to use Markdown. The syntax page provides complete, detailed documentation for every feature, but Markdown should be very easy to pick up simply by looking at a few examples of it in action. The examples on this page are written in a before/after style, showing example syntax and the HTML output produced by Markdown.
It’s also helpful to simply try Markdown out; the Dingus is a web application that allows you type your own Markdown-formatted text and translate it to XHTML.
History
John Gruber, with substantial contributions from Aaron Swartz, created the Markdown language in 2004 with the goal of enabling people "to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, and optionally convert it to structurally valid XHTML (or HTML)”.
Taking cues from existing conventions for marking up plain text in email, such as setext, the language was designed to be readable as-is, without looking like it's been marked up with tags or formatting instructions, unlike text formatted with a markup language, such as Rich Text Format (RTF) or HTML, which have obvious tags and formatting instructions.
Standardization
There is no clearly defined Markdown standard, apart from the original writeup and implementation by John Gruber, which some consider to be abandonware. This has led to fragmentation as different vendors write their own variants of the language to correct flaws or add missing features.
From 2012 through 2014, a group of people including Jeff Atwood launched what Atwood characterized as a standardization effort. A community website now aims to "document various tools and resources available to document authors and developers, as well as implementors of the various markdown implementations". In September 2014, Gruber objected to the usage of "Markdown" in the name of this effort and it was rebranded as a new dialect named "CommonMark".