[Pmwiki-users] the descriptions of emphasis

[Patrick R. Michaud]

I forgot to add references to the appropriate PmWiki pages...

http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/PmWiki/Audiences describes why
we don't just resort to HTML.

http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/PmWiki/PmWikiPhilosophy  #2
talks about the dangers of markup proliferation.

http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/PmWiki/AdvancedTables
has a section about why editing tools such as DreamWeaver,
FrontPage, and Microsoft Word can't be used to generate
table markup in a collaborative environment.


On Fri, Dec 03, 2004 at 11:00:17AM -0700, Patrick R. Michaud wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 03, 2004 at 12:23:33PM -0500, Tom Holroyd wrote:
> > > '++bigger++' and '--smaller--' did cross my mind this morning.
> > 
> > Um, not to be picky or anything, but why do we need seperate 
> > syntax for html constructs?
> > 
> > Are we hiding arcane html gobbledygook with equally arcane, 
> > non-standard gobbledygook?
> > 
> > At what point do we say, hey, just use html markup?
> 
> Because html markup is hard to read and edit, especially 
> for people who don't know it, and this is a collaborative
> authoring environment.  If you're working in a blog or other 
> environment where people only add to content but don't
> edit others' posts, then you're in pretty good shape,
> but when an HTML expert places a lot of HTML tags into
> the source markup, they effectively discourage or block
> the non-HTML-experts from contributing.
> 
> > These things are just shortcuts, right?
> 
> Nope, they're a different markup language, and in many
> cases the markups add features and/or structure that 
> simply don't exist in HTML (consider <<|WikiTrails|>>, 
> [[!Categories]], (:include:), (:search:), headers,
> footers, etc.).
> 
> Pm