# Standard Markdown is now Common Markdown

**URL:** <https://discourse.codinghorror.com/t/standard-markdown-is-now-common-markdown/2413>\
**Category:** blog\
**Created:** [September 4, 2014, 11:25pm UTC](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/t/standard-markdown-is-now-common-markdown/2413 "2014-09-04T23:25:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 219

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**Author:** ![BatmanAoD](https://discourse-cdn.codinghorror.com/user_avatar/discourse.codinghorror.com/batmanaod/32/75489_2.png) [@BatmanAoD](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/u/BatmanAoD)\
**Post date:** [September 11, 2014, 5:39pm UTC](https://discourse.codinghorror.com/t/standard-markdown-is-now-common-markdown/2413/219 "2014-09-11T17:39:51Z")

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> [@davidzych](#):
>
> nothing but good things can come out of this.

Well, with the exception of this little spat, of course.

> [@David\_W](#):
>
> You’re too focused on details and you’re missing the overall point of Markdown: Markdown is a way to make a document that’s simple to write and easy to read even if it’s not rendered by some parser.

What gives you the impression that Jeff doesn’t completely and totally understand this and agree with it?

> [@David\_W](#):
>
> There may be edge cases in Markdown, but it’s likely that any document with those edge cases is probably unreadable in its raw form.

…did you actually look at the example of ambiguity that Jeff posted? It’s hardly “unreadable” in its raw form.

> [@David\_W](#):
>
> The best thing for a parser to do in those cases is to spit out an error message, “Hey, this is Markdown, and not Microsoft Word. Keep it simple.”

That would be _extremely_ pedantic, and much, much more contrary to the spirit of Markdown than anything Jeff is doing. The best thing for a Markdown parser to do in edge cases would be to follow the _standard procedure for such edge cases as clarified by the spec_, which of course would only work if the spec actually clarifies such cases. This way, either the text will be rendered as the user intended without them needing to adjust anything, or the user would see that it’s not what they expected and re-write it. And if the user copies-and-pastes the source onto a site using a different parser, the output will be the same, as expected.

> [@David\_W](#):
>
> There might be a need to create… a decent Markdown to HTML converter, and a decent Markdown to PDF converter, and a decent Markdown to POD converter and a decent Markdown to Microsoft Word converter too.

You know what would help with that? Having a spec, so that implementers of these converters know exactly what to implement.

> [@David\_W](#):
>
> You might feel a need for new formatting capabilities…
> 
> Be careful about adding features. That’s a slippery slope.

These statements are contradictory and also miss the point of standardization. Standardization is not the time to add a bunch of new features. Jeff isn’t creating a new “flavor” of Markdown with cool new formatting tricks. He’s eliminating edge cases to ensure that CommonMark really is the simple and extensible markup language Markdown was always intended to be.

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