I'm _trying_ to get a [censored]π€¬ releasable version of my book out to beta readers today, but what I'm actually doing is spending a lot of time finding tiny things that needed editing, and fighting with buggy edge cases I keep discovering in #Leanpub's markua parser and / or PDF generator.
I'm 100% abandoning #Markua AND Leanpub as soon as I get this 1st release out to folks. I don't have spoons π₯ for π© like this & the iteration cycle is minutes long.
So, again, being niche isn't inherently a problem for markup formats as long as users aren't handcuffed by the ideas & creations of one company or person.
Even if the markup & tooling is extensible by folks outside of the creators, you're never going to get to the point where anyone _will_ extend it unless you give them code to reference and build on.
#Markua didn't & no-one's done anything with it in the decade since it was released.
I'm just⦠ARRRGH it could have been SO good.
π§΅3/3
related to this whole stupid deep dive into #Markua
It's ok to be niche _if_ you have great tooling _and_ you make it easy for people to build on your thing.
Org-mode is _fucking amazing_ but NOT because its markup is particularly spectacular. It's _amazing_ because of how mind-blowingly good the tooling is.
It's niche because only Emacs geeks can use it, but its SO FUCKING GOOD that it's worth switching to Emacs just to use.
#OrgMode
π§΅1/3
I think that even if #Markua was the objectively best markup for writers it doesn't matter.
The tooling is π©, and the ecosystem is non-existent. #Leanpub clearly spent a lot of time creating it, and documenting it a spec, and a book on using it, BUT I don't see any evidence of them doing _anything_ to facilitate its adoption by anyone else. They just said "here's my cool thing" and wandered off.
π§΅7/7
Additional #Markua thoughts
1. Unlike most markup specs it's evolving in response to the need of users.
Ex. 2 months ago they added specific handling for YouTube videos included in course material.
2. Community Support / Ecosystem is non-existent. Leanpub is (as far as I can tell) LITERALLY the only place using Markua.
π§΅1/7
For those of you wondering WTF #Markua is
It's a superset of Markdown designed to handle everything that someone doing #TechnicalWriting for a book would need.
No-one's heard of it, because despite being well documented, and an open spec, #Leanpub is the only place I've ever heard of that uses it.
My initial impression is VERY positive, but as MANY discussions with @dachary have revealed the needs of tech writers are WAY more complicated & nuanced than anyone thinks.
Org-mode -> #Markua hackery update:
- taught it how to support manually specifying linebreaks with slash or two spaces at end of a line
- taught it how to respect a property and keyword to toggle newline handling for the section / document respectively
THEN started investigating the problem I set out to (bad underline handling)
Did an audit of what org-defines vs what ox-leanpup, ox-gfm, and ox-md all support
1/2
Guess what? You don't have to imagine an easy way to write books π in Markdown in your browser: try Leanpub! #markua #markdown #books #writing #HTML
Full tutorial here: https://help.leanpub.com/en/articles/2916385-getting-started-using-leanpub-s-git-and-github-writing-mode-to-write-and-publish-a-book
masukomi
Leanpub