[throwawaaarrgh]

> All of these rules lead to unexpected results sometimes, and they make writing a parser for CommonMark a complex affair.

> What if we tried to create a light markup syntax [..] revising some of the features that have led to bloat and complexity in the CommonMark spec?

Are you writing this new format to make life easier for the humans using it, or the humans programming it?

It's sad when programmers don't see the forest for the trees.

[boerseth]

If the rules are too complicated, then they are a challenge for all parties, both users and implementers. I think it is useful to be able to imagine at least on some higher level what a parser would do to the stuff I write, so everyone benefits from the ease of understanding that comes with simpler rules. The question is just how far we can simplify without reducing usability.

The rest of the article frequently takes the side of the users, and mentions how confusing certain existing rules are to them. I know I frequently don't know what to expect from Markdown in certain corner cases, and felt vindicated by the author calling them out here. Some of their ideas for simplification would surprisingly even let us do things that are currently not possible.

[_gabe_]

> If the rules are too complicated, then they are a challenge for all parties, both users and implementers

Not necessarily. Generics, and/or C++ templates are a pain to parse because they're context sensitive. But while reading/writing code it's typically obvious whether I'm writing a comparison or a generic/template.

  Foo<Bar> foo;
  // VS
  Foo < Bar;

Likewise, in C++ you can end up with:

  unordered_set<tuple<int, float>> mySet;
  // >> is ambiguous here without a symbol table or context around the statement
  Foo >> 5;

I think both of these are fairly obvious as a user of the language, but boy am I glad I don't have to parse that!

[ilyt]

> If the rules are too complicated, then they are a challenge for all parties, both users and implementers.

You are still confouding rules for writing with rules for parsing. It's absolutely possible and easy to make rules making writing easier but parsing harder.

For example, if you make rule that makes formatting markers like **\_ be order insensitive (so **_word**_ formats same as **_word_**), much easier for user, as they don't need to remember order of which the operators were used, harder to code (I assume)

[ncallaway]

The problem is when it's too hard for the computers, then it negatively impacts the user experience.

There are cases that are 100% ambiguous in the spec, which means there can be no _right_ answer. Different users will have different (and both reasonable) expectations about what the same input will do. So, in these cases "too hard" for the computer means leads directly to a negative user experience. The language becomes more unpredictable.

I agree that we shouldn't _ever_ lose focus on the end user experience. But sometimes, you have to make the spec less ambiguous to improve the end-user experience.

[jitl]

I am flamfoozled by paragraph-in-list and list-indentation regularly in status quo markdown. Maybe it’s because the syntax is a little weird for the edge cases today? Or maybe I’m just a goof who needs to go read GitHub’s parser source.