Markdown

I find it strange talking about Markdown after using it for more than a decade now. But what exactly is markdown? Here’s what the creator has to say:

1. Markdown is a plain text formatting syntax
2. Markdown is also a software tool, that converts the plain text formatting to HTML

I only use the first part where I can:

write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format

For the second part, I rely on apps to do it for me. Right now, I’m using Byword and Drafts interchangeably, both of which plays very nice with the markdown syntax.

Why Markdown when I could just as easily write using many many other things eg Microsoft Word?

To me, writing in markdown gives me a limited way to play with text formatting which is just sufficient for most writing exercises but nothing fancy so that I won’t get bogged down by Times New Roman vs Sans Serif. Because of this “limitation”, I removed the friction to put thoughts onto digital paper. This is probably why markdown language survived as long as it did and why I’ve used it as long as I did. Apps come and go, but the syntax is recognizable even in plain text.

You can find out more about markdown here.