[KrisAndrew]

I agree with the author in general. However, I would write an article about a more general and insidious fashion (fashion repeats itself). That fashion is "I hate typing" or, alternatively, "typing less makes me more productive." Guess what; it doesn't. Here's why.

If you're using programming slang to make yourself more productive, then you're not programming. You're a boiler-plate code generator. Therefore you could be replaced by a program or DSL that a more adept programmer could write. Stop using slanguages and start thinking about what and how you're coding. You'll become a better programmer. Quit trying to fool yourself that syntactic sugar and shortcuts are a valid development paradigm. You'll become a better project manager.

I abhor things like CoffeeScript and Markdown and various metalanguages, because they are speciously productive at first. You type less and get the same result. Great! However, most coding actually requires some thought and the logic and structures don't simply fly off your fingers. It comes slowly and these slanguages stop being useful at this point. So you take the time and effort to learn a modified, non-standard syntax that stops paying off once you get to the core of your task.

I hate to think of how many wasted programming man-hours non-standardized formats have produced.

[camillomiller]

I think that the original post and your comment both miss the point in a big way. You are upset at all the people who use markdown and think they are coders. Do you really think such a sample of people exists? Where exactly? Nobody can say that with a serious face and anybody who's into learning markdown has at least enough knowledge to know that.

Use case for markdown: when I build website (by hand, writing pure HTML-CSS-JS on my text editor of choice), adding the copy can be a chore. If I write it in markdown, or ask people to write it in markdown, or reprocess whatever they send me in a markdown editor with html output (I.e. Byword), I save a ton of time by producing a very simple html text block I just need to copy and paste where needed.

Second use case: when I wrote my degree thesis I chose to do that with a normal text processing software (Pages on the Mac). When I had to put it online, I simply copied it inside a markdown editor coupled with a previewer (Marked) and I quickly wrote a couple of scripts to convert footnotes (supported by hyper markdown). Half a day later I had my chapters in a format that I was able to quickly turn into html blocks for my website and convert to ePub with Pandoc. Markdown saved me hours of work.

Third use case: whenever I write a post for the web publications I work for, I write it in markdown with Byword, because it gives me a good distraction-free writing environment and the ability to send my editors (that being myself, sometimes) a perfectly fit HTML a version of the article. When I write articles, I want to focus on writing the article, not writing even the simplest HTML.

Last, but not least, the guy seems to willfully ignore the plethora of very good markdown editors (with incredible support to HTML conversion) out there.

This is why the article sounded more like a bitter rant, than a thought critique.

[KrisAndrew]

It's a critique, impassioned and curt albeit; and here's the most powerful metaphor you'll hear in regard to the topic of non-standardized formats.

Non-standardized formats/languages are the jive (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_jive_talk) of the development world. It sets you apart from the general population (of programmers) when you use it. It primarily effects obfuscated communication to a smaller group. The specific form of jive will fall out of fashion a few years after you learn it. There is very little value in committing it into your brain other than for 'funsies'.

(In regard to Markdown specifically: there are tons of WYSIWYG HTML editors out there. Use those and copy/paste the HTML text. It requires no learning at all. Markdown was pre-emptively made useless over a decade ago.)

[al2o3cr]

""typing less makes me more productive." Guess what; it doesn't."

That statement may or may not be true, but its converse ("typing MORE makes me more productive") is nigh-certainly false.