alt Hacker NewsThe writeup does not mention Jeff Atwood (Stackoverflow founder) trying to convince Gruber to standardize markdown. Atwood approached him publicly in a series of blog posts, but Gruber kept silent, and if I remember correctly finally declined stating that he didn't want to spend time jumping through other persons' hoops. Although it sucks that markdown is not standardized, I still see this as an inspiring example of a person just doing what he wants to do.
Replies
thangalin • yesterday at 5:51 PM
> Although it sucks that markdown is not standardized
Does CommonMark count?
2OEH8eoCRo0 • yesterday at 1:39 PM
The lack of standardization has bitten me many times.
It happened a bit differently; Atwood and friends simply came out with a standard document and called it "standard markdown", which Gruber then refused to endorse. Eventually after the series of blog posts and some back and forth they renamed the project "CommonMark", which it is still called today.
I am not sure (of course), but I think Atwood simply thought standardizing this format was so obviously valuable that he didn't consider Gruber might not want to work with him. In retrospect it's kind of nice that it didn't happen, it really keeps everyone incentivized to keep the format simple.