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17:25:36
tsandstr
Shinmera: What do you think about the Org format for markdown? How would you compare Markless to Org?
17:27:39
Shinmera
I tried to get into it once years ago, but stopped for reasons I've since forgotten.
17:27:41
tsandstr
Alright. I am interested in trying Markless out for fun, but I love the Org ecosystem right now.
17:28:15
Shinmera
Well, I don't think Markless will ever replace Org or anything. They're made with different intents, as far as I understand?
17:29:55
tsandstr
What exactly is your intent with Markless? My understanding was that it is a markdown language that can export to various formats and be parsed into a friendly AST
17:30:50
Shinmera
It's a markup language (markdown is a specific markup language) primarily meant to target simple document authoring such as in comment sections, readmes, or for simple books or articles.
17:31:16
Shinmera
I'm still not 100% done with it, for instance I'd like to add better support for citations so it could be used for academic purposes too.
17:32:11
Shinmera
Primarily Markless is a standard however, so it just defines the syntax and how each component is meant to be visualised (roughly)
17:32:45
Shinmera
Currently there's only one compiler, cl-markless, which can output html, plaintext, or epub.
17:32:56
tsandstr
Interesting. Out of curiosity, why did you feel the need to create your own standard rather than adopting an existing one like Org?
17:34:08
Shinmera
I was frustrated with the proliferation of Markdown on the web, which I consider to be a terrible language. I set out to create a standardised language with a focus on being intuitive, and fast to parse.
17:34:35
Shinmera
Markless is the result of me debating stuff and asking people for feedback for about 5 years.
17:36:46
tsandstr
Looking through your spec, it looks very nice. I wonder if I could write a parser that could interact with my Org environment, translating between Org and Markless in real time.
17:37:21
tsandstr
I would be interested in giving your standard a shot in my workflow because it does look very nice
17:37:24
Shinmera
There's an emacs package for Markless on melpa that does (partial) syntax highlighting.
17:38:24
tsandstr
I'll be sure to check that out. Also, just so you know, I've been looking through some of your projects and have a lot of respect for you as a developer. Thanks for putting so much work into so many great projects.
17:41:25
Shinmera
If you find anything confusing or odd while reading the Markless standard, let me know. It's quite possible it isn't clear enough yet.