/blog

John Gruber on Markdown:

"the whole point of it is to provide a syntax where the most common HTML tags for prose can be replaced by simple punctuation characters that are meant to be visible to the writer ... I have no idea why there are now apps that use Markdown as their back end storage format but only show styled text without the Markdown source code visible."

I understand why apps such as Ulysses and Bear "only show styled text" but as I now only write in plain textareas I see all my markup. I've previously enjoyed apps that want to allow their users to write in Markdown but retain a clean layout but, if using apps, ultimatey prefer the hybrid scenario where you have both – show the markup and the immediate visual clue of syntax highlighting.