The Last Blog Post Ever About Markdown

now we can stop talking about it

2026-01-29

I continue to see blog posts with titles like this:

• I Hate Markdown
• Markdown Is Really Bad Actually
• In Defense Of Markdown
• Against Markdown
• Markdown Is Bad For You

…and I have so far avoided weighing in on the debate because it is tiresome and tedious.

But that ends today!

So here it is. The very last thing that needs to be said about markdown ever:

IT’S FINE.

If you ever find yourself in a situation where you start to disagree, or become frustrated at its limitations, just remember that it was essentially “discovered” hidden amongst the already established conventions of plain text email and usenet posting. Much in the same way Douglas Crockford “discovered” JSON already existing within the JavaScript spec.

So if you’re writing anything more structurally complex than what you’d traditionally send in an email, then maybe you oughtn’t be using markdown anyway.

In closing, here’s Edward Tufte (emphasis mine):

[It is] notable that the Feynman lectures (3 volumes) write about all of physics in 1800 pages, using only 2 levels of hierarchical headings: chapters and A-level heads in the text. It also uses the methodology of sentences which then cumulate sequentially into paragraphs, rather than the grunts of bullet points. Undergraduate Caltech physics is very complicated material, but it didn’t require an elaborate hierarchy to organize.

Edward Tufte