ok, i waited for 2 weeks, and still no votes -- none! -- on whether my posts are sufficiently on-topic, or not... and that basically confirms what i suspected all along, which is that no one really cares one way or the other. even the guys who put up the bitchy posts are probably just having a bad day, and they don't have a dog to kick, and the wife made 'em stop smoking herb, so they have no way to chill out and get mellow when they're cranky. *** so i'll still think about it some more, but it's likely that i'll resume the short series of messages i had in mind. a firm realization that no one wants to hear my points is certainly enough to make me reconsider, to be sure, and i have done (and will continue) that mental math... but here's the thing that tips the scale. i think i have a better way of specifying light-markup. indeed, i am convinced i do. now i could be wrong, but usually when i'm _convinced_, it turns out that i'm right. so i feel an obligation. thus i'm eventually gonna show the world my better way. and _if_ the world cares -- always a huge uncertainty -- i expect that a very common reaction to my specification will go like this: "i think you've got something here, and i'm gonna use it, for sure, but i just wish that markdown would support this, because markdown is so widespread. no offense, bowerbird, but you're just one person, while markdown already has that huge _community_ behind it." that's what i expect people will say to me. (if anything.) so when they do, i wanna be able to reply by saying this: "you know, i agree with you completely. i don't want to have to make all this crap by myself. i have better things to do than support a bunch of users who i don't charge. especially since i'm going up against the market-leader. so i tried to get markdown developers to attend to this. i tried and tried and tried. but they just wouldn't listen. so finally i had to release it myself, to benefit the world." so that's the bottom line. i _wish_ you guys would listen to me. i really do. but i ain't gonna kiss your asses. so i'm here to tell you something. so i can tell other people that i _tried_ to tell you. whether or not you listen to me is entirely up to you. and there's your fucking soliloquy for this week... -bowerbird -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/markdown-discuss/attachments/20111215/63eecab7/attachment.html>
Hi Bowerbird
I'll confess I missed the whole vote thing. A bunch of messages were
rambling on and on, and after a few paragraphs I hit the 'next
message' key.
Back when Steve Jobs ran NeXT he said something like:
"People won't change technologies for a 20% increase in productivity.
They won't change for even 100%. They will change for 500%"
In practice you see this all the time.
BetaMax was the 20% better technology. But VHS got the lead, and it
wasn't worth converting.
Digital Nikons were around for years before I switched. That switch
was hastened when I drowned my 8008 on a canoe trip. But it was close
to the 500% better when it happened.
Lots of new construction methods out there, but they aren't enough
better to make it worth while for builders to jump through the extra
hoops with the building inspectors.
In contrast here's a ray of light:
Apple needed to abandon the Power PC chip and move to Intel. It was
much cheaper, it was faster, and it had a growth path. To make this
work for their customers:
1. They ported the OS to the new system.
2. They put out a compiler tool chain that would build universal binaries.
3. They built in a PowerPC emulator to support older programs.
4. They maintained backward compatibility for the next 4 releases of the OS.
If you have a better mousetrap I would suggest:
1. It has to have legacy support for standard markdown (Pick your standard....)
or
It has to have a very good converter for MMD to BMD (Bowerbird mark down)
2. Build a web page. On that web page:
a. There is a page with the full syntax of BMD done in the tutorial
style of John Gruber's page. Syntax differences from MMD are
highlighted in skyblue pink.
b. There is a page showing the desired output coded as standard MMD
and as BMD so that people have a large size sample to work with and
look at.
c. There is a discussion forum on that page for talking about BMD.
Ideally there is a port so that discussions there also come to this
list, but not all MMD users are on this list.
Respectfully,
Sherwood of Sherwood's Forests
Sherwood Botsford
Sherwood's Forests --? http://Sherwoods-Forests.com
780-848-2548
50042 Range Rd 31
Warburg, Alberta T0C 2T0
On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 5:00 PM, <Bowerbird at aol.com> wrote:> ok, i waited for 2 weeks, and still no votes -- none! -- > on whether my posts are sufficiently on-topic, or not...I'm interested, consider your posts generally on-topic, and would rather you stuck around. After all, there is no fun in an echo-chamber. c -- Chris Lott <chris at chrislott.org>