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tinthedevlast Tuesday at 12:33 PM8 repliesview on HN

I'm not quite sure who this is for.

Markdown is for keeping things simple.

There's plenty of of "proper" markup languages and full programming languages to actually write code in.

Why do we need a hybrid program like this, which is not as simple as pure markup, and is not as powerful as a proper templating language?

I personally just run markdown -> HTML/CSS -> python templating (Jinja or something) -> PDF/HTML

As a dev, I find this works the best for me. But I also cannot imagine that learning Quarkdown would improve my workflow meaningfully, and I also cannot imagine recommending someone learn such a niche product instead of having them learn HTML/CSS and Python (Jinja if they need fancy). Seems like a comparable amount of effort.


Replies

tiffanyhlast Tuesday at 1:52 PM

This is for academic and publication journals.

Which is why you see Typst it's strongest competitor in the Comparison Chart.

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andailast Tuesday at 4:03 PM

It's for me, as far as I can tell! I like making PDFs.

My ideas start in Obsidian (Markdown) and then I use pandoc and add a bunch of cursed inline LaTeX hacks to the Markdown for the final product.

I guess cursed hacks are part of any workflow, but I am definitely going to check this out.

throwawaymathslast Tuesday at 12:39 PM

its for people who want latex but are mad that latex became c++

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coliveiralast Tuesday at 2:22 PM

That's why these things don't go anywhere. If I need to write formatting details, it is better to use LaTeX which is a well-tested and stable language that will last for another 30 years.

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beneboylast Tuesday at 5:07 PM

Could definitely see using this for docs. We end up with HTML scattered through our markdown files whenever we need something beyond basic formatting, which is ugly. The ecosystem support is the real question though - Markdown works everywhere because it's been around forever.

MisterTealast Tuesday at 4:44 PM

> I personally just run markdown -> HTML/CSS -> python templating (Jinja or something) -> PDF/HTML

Unix philosophy vs highly integrated vertical Microsoft style applications. One benefits users, the other, the vendor.

nonethewiserlast Tuesday at 2:22 PM

>markdown -> HTML/CSS -> python templating (Jinja or something) -> PDF/HTML

Uh...

maybe thats why they just want markdown -> PDF/HTML

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