1K Blog Marathon: Day 44

As programmers, we always deal with codes, literally thousands of lines of them. And along with the functionality of the code, we also look forward to a solution on how to make our output more beautiful without adding elaborate styles. This is why the “Markdown” is popular among front-end developers.

But what is Markdown, by the way?

Markdown is a Markup Language (like HTML) that uses plain text format and converts it to styled format. It’s like bridging the gap between designing and programming. It is used to format paragraphs, headings, and texts without the use of HTML tags.

Creators of Markdown

Back in 2004, John Gruber and Aaron Swartz created Markdown.

Markdown in Practice

Here I will show you a simple list of Markdown codes.

Markdown code VS Output

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown#:~:text=Markdown%20is%20a%20lightweight%20markup,using%20a%20plain%20text%20editor.

Many platforms supports Markdown, like Slack, Podio and WordPress.

Benefits of using Markdown

1. Content writers can use it without thorough programming skills.
2. It is user friendly and the learning curve is not so steep.
3. Open source.
4. And because open source, community is big.
5. Easy text formatting because of the omission of tags.

“Down” of Markdown

Although created for easy content writing, Markdown has downsides also. Markdown is not standardized, meaning different mediums/browsers will render different result. You also need to use markdown generator to/compiler to show markdown in your website.

All in all, Markdown is not a bad thing to add in your blog. You can also take it to the next level and practice elaborate markdown codes like how to add table in markdown. Check out this websites for Markdown Tutorials:

1. Daring Fireball
2. Github
3. Markdown Guide
4. Commonmark
5. Markdown Tutorial

Thank you folks for dropping by! Come back tomorrow for another tech feed!

“And that’s one blog, stay hungry!”

“Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live”

― John Woods