The case for bland markdown

Markdown was designed as a simple method of adding HTML markup to a document that also was readable as plain text. Jeff McNiell feels that it’s getting too complicated and suggests adopting bland markdown syntax as a kind of markdown standard.


He had me interested until his suggestion of using a single hash (#) at the beginning of a line to indicate a header. I find that headers underlined using equal signs (for main heading) and dashes (for subheadings) reads better in plain text than headers set off with hash symbols, even though it requires more keystrokes.

Since one of John Gruber’s original criteria was to have the plain text “as readable as possible”, it only makes sense to use the version that has the greater impact.