@federico3 As someone with a hat in this, it's because other formats are pretty arbitrary too. #Markdown was designed to still be readable as plaintext -- something it fails at, yes, with that awful link syntax -- but the same complaint can be levied against ReST, #AsciiDoc etc which all have arbitrary and unusual syntax patterns that work for a parser but don't necessarily work for plaintext.

And plaintext, unlike programming languages, depends more on aesthetic principles that are more personal. Programmer may argue about line-break before `{` but the code still compiles -- that's not the case with markup languages!

For my databaseless forum I invented a markup syntax where the output can be copied and pasted as valid input: just leave the `*` & `_`'s in and style with CSS, it works surprisingly well. For ReMarkable I hewed closer to plain-text aesthetics but it needs some revisions, and it's difficult to swap one bad syntax for a better one down the line when the format is already in wide use.

Markdown would have seen a decline, until GitHub took off. I think that really cemented its modern usage more than anything. You can stab it with your steely knives, but you just can't kill the beast 🤷

Why are we still using #markdown and, especially, why aren't we using #AsciiDoc? https://bgslabs.org/blog/why-are-we-using-markdown/
Why the heck are we still using Markdown?? | BGs Labs

Burak Güngörs lab where he does some stuff

Has anyone any recommendations for tools / styling for #ebooks? I'm looking at #asciidoc to #epub but I'm wondering what the "right" way to style the epub should be

-- edit: A very good solution has been found, but Mastodon can't add images to retoots, so here we are, using URLs: https://oldbytes.space/@Kroc/116346357622698597

#aeonglass #writersofmastodon #ebook #writing #writingcommunity

Kroc Camen (@[email protected])

Attached: 1 image THIS IS VERY COOL!!! (with huge thanks to @[email protected] script / template for providing the automation / formatting for #ebook and PDF! https://github.com/mattgemmell/pandoc-publish) #aeonglass #writing #writingcommunity #writesofmastodon

OldBytes Space - Mastodon

@nielsk Think of the Family Guy meme to remember it. Markdown is the weird one.

#markdown #orgmode #asciidoc #plaintext

Easy Online Profiles with Asciidoctor

Want an online presence, but you don't want to build a website, or blog, or self-host? With really basic terminal dabbling and asciidoctor you can quickly make a minimal, simple profile where you own your data.

https://readbeanicecream.surge.sh/2026/03/13/easy-online-profiles-with-asciidoctor/

#indieweb #smallweb #socialmedia #asciidoctor #plaintext #asciidoc

Easy Online Profiles with Asciidoctor - ReadBeanIceCream

It's a new hex5week, and #hexunixtime has a new feature. Give the `hexunixtime` function the name of a format for more info. EG:

> hexunixtime hex5month
069Bm
most significant digit: increments every ~4355 years (137438953472 seconds)
least significant digit: increments every ~24.3 days (2097152 seconds), odd hex values only
0xFF498 seconds until next increment

Documented:
https://hg.sr.ht/~travisfw/hexunixtime/raw/README.adoc?rev=tip#hexunixtime

#asciidoc renderer addon
https://github.com/asciidoctor/asciidoctor-browser-extension

IntelliJ IDEA Integration for Playfair

As a developer, I work with the IntelliJ IDEA development environment, as do many other developers. I don't want to discuss its many advantages for developers here, but rather how to use Playfair with the AsciiDoc plugin.

https://schegge.de/2026/03/intellij-idea-integration-for-playfair/

#AusDemLeben #Java #AsciiDoc #Asciidoctor #BarChart #charts #DiagramAsCode #IntelliJIDEA #playfair

</Agile> IntelliJ IDEA Integration for Playfair

As a developer, I work with the IntelliJ IDEA development environment, as do many other developers. I don’t want to discuss its many advantages for developers here, but rather how to use Play…

</Agile>

I start to leverage the true potential of #codingassistants only now. So far, I crossposted my blog posts by first transforming them from #Asciidoc to #Markdown by hand. Feasible, but boring.

I have created a #ClaudeCode command and my life is so much better.

FYI: #asciidoc with #asciidoctor #bibtex stumbles upon slashes in bibtex #citation keys
it prints the citation key in the bibliography before the entry.

This happens with all the #IACR #eprint #cryptology paper citations generated on their site

Removing the slash from the citekey is a workaround

I've converted some random dev notes I had lying around from working on clojure-ts-mode, neocaml and asciidoc-mode to a blog post with some general advice for building #Emacs major modes powered by #TreeSitter https://batsov.com/articles/2026/02/27/building-emacs-major-modes-with-treesitter-lessons-learned/

I hope some of you will find it useful! I certainly wish someone had written such an article a year ago when I started to get more serious about playing with TreeSitter.

#Clojure #OCaml #AsciiDoc

Building Emacs Major Modes with TreeSitter: Lessons Learned

Over the past year I’ve been spending a lot of time building TreeSitter-powered major modes for Emacs – clojure-ts-mode (as co-maintainer), neocaml (from scratch), and asciidoc-mode (also from scratch). Between the three projects I’ve accumulated enough battle scars to write about the experience. This post distills the key lessons for anyone thinking about writing a TreeSitter-based major mode, or curious about what it’s actually like.

(think)