Dumbdown
Languages and libraries
markup language
SHOW HN2021
107points
102comments
#493of 2,533 in 2021
Top 20%of 2021 by points
How HN took it
RoastedHalf or more of the comments are critical
12 positive, 11 neutral or asking, 1 mixed, 31 critical, out of 55 comments about the project. Thread score -0.34.
Idea: 8 for, 15 againstDesign: 2 for, 14 againstPrivacy: 1 for, 0 againstExecution: 0 for, 1 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Interesting idea and ecosystem around Tree Notation as a DSL tool.
From 2 comments
Most of this thread is giving entirely good reasons why this is worse than markdown; longer to type, kinda worse to read, misunderstands how markdown aligns with _patterns people…
abeppu on HNYou beat me to it. Any time treenotation.org is involved, the most fascinating part is how you can build compilers for interesting use cases in a very simple declarative way.…
TuringTest on HN
Could be useful for non-technical users or voice editing.
From 2 comments
To give a counter-perspective to many of the current comments: this is awesome. Maybe HN isn't the right demographic, but for someone that works with people that aren't super…
tylerchilds on HNNice if you want to edit with voice
julienreszka on HN
Objections
Harder to read as plain text than Markdown.
From 3 comments
The beautiful thing about markdown is that it looks correct in plain text as well as when parsed. I often look at Markdown READMEs from a text editor or a console and things like…
dustinmoris on HNThe whole point of Markdown is that the formatting is simple and keeps the text readable - even enhances readability over plain text with no formatting. Dumbdown is more…
onlyrealcuzzo on HNI think most people will prefer markdown, since this breaks the ability to read the doc as plain text. However for people that don't care about that, dumbdown might be nice.
s17n on HN
More keystrokes than Markdown and still requires memorizing keywords.
From 3 comments
I'm sorry, I may be in the minority here but I strongly dislike this. Where I type no additional characters to start a paragraph in markdown, I'll need to type 9 characters with…
jnsie on HNMarkdown isn't perfect but I'm sorry to say this isn't the answer. You're still forced to memorize syntax, it's just that it's full words instead of symbols (which becomes extra…
ziml77 on HNI think this doesn't solve the problem it aims to solve. Sure, the symbols are gone and replaced with words, but does that make the special word required in a given situation any…
shawnz on HN
Unclear target audience; word processors already exist.
From 2 comments
They can just use a word processor then. I am not really seeing the target audience for this.
SemiNormal on HNI’m failing to see why anyone would use this. Is it April’s fool already?
baby on HN
Requests
Add shorthand syntax, such as p for paragraph.
From 1 comment
I have to admit that I like this, it is a neat idea. Maybe there should be shorthand syntax, so that paragraph can be p. Otherwise it is decent. Inline obviously wouldn't work…
desireco42 on HN
Clarify how inline formatting such as links works.
From 2 comments
how do I have a link in a paragraph?
zackkrida on HNI have to admit that I like this, it is a neat idea. Maybe there should be shorthand syntax, so that paragraph can be p. Otherwise it is decent. Inline obviously wouldn't work…
desireco42 on HN
Questions
Can Dumbdown be converted back into Markdown?
From 1 comment
Is it possible to decompile Dumbdown back into Markdown using the same grammar?
wumms on HN
How does it handle inline elements?
From 2 comments
I have to admit that I like this, it is a neat idea. Maybe there should be shorthand syntax, so that paragraph can be p. Otherwise it is decent. Inline obviously wouldn't work…
desireco42 on HNhow do I have a link in a paragraph?
zackkrida on HN
Alternatives named
Markdown
From 2 comments
The beautiful thing about markdown is that it looks correct in plain text as well as when parsed. I often look at Markdown READMEs from a text editor or a console and things like…
dustinmoris on HNMarkdown isn't perfect but I'm sorry to say this isn't the answer. You're still forced to memorize syntax, it's just that it's full words instead of symbols (which becomes extra…
ziml77 on HN
HTML
From 1 comment
Personally I find Markdown extremely inconsistent and hard to use. I find it much easier to just use a subset of HTML. It's also much easier that way to just slap a stylesheet on…
dheera on HN
LaTeX
From 1 comment
Honest question: is there a reason to use this over LaTeX? If I stick to the core formatting also offered by Markdown, LaTeX is not hard to remember. And if I want to go beyond…
vharuck on HN
AsciiDoc
From 1 comment
I had the impression Markdown already is the dumb alternative to AsciiDoc.
k__ on HN