Show HN: Sundown – an alternative to Markdown
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This seems to have the negatives of both Markdown and HTML, and no unique advantages over either. It's a little less verbose than HTML, but you have to know HTML tags (and Sundown syntax) to use it, and I have my doubts it can avoid the quirks Markdown has because converting any "friendly" markup to a formal syntax like HTML is always prone to quirks. It has the alleged advantage over Markdown of being able to use HTML and Sundown together...but, some Markdown processors also allow mixing MD and HTML, so this is not a unique benefit (this is quirky in Markdown, but I suspect it's quirky in Sundown, too).
Maybe I'm missing the benefit here, but it seems like a technical solution to a people problem, and that almost never works.
Also, as an aside, it's got the same name as a Markdown processor that is even mentioned in the article! That seems bound to cause confusion, given the similarities in purpose.
I actually bench marked all of the Markdown implementatinos back in 2016 (or early 2017). https://github.com/vmg/sundown was by far the fastest!
Aside from the difference in syntax (which is huge), I would say convenience.
SunSed = Hosting + IDE + CDN + a new programming language + Layout and Template system (like Jekyll and Hugo) + Many built-in tags to abstract things like embedding Youtube videos in a responsive way (which is not easy -- requires so many div wrappers).
You can also create your own tags and share it with others. I have started the process of creating tags for useful and popular libraries:
If you know HTML, you already know the syntax of SunSed programming language, and can create fast dynamic websites with ease by abstracting your website content in custom HTML tags!
After all, SunSed is a programmable website builder.
> Maybe I'm missing the benefit here
Sundown is useful because it lets you abstract your custom server-side HTML tags. In other words, you can extend the language very easily.
For example, you can create a tag called "note" and use that instead of repeating HTLM, CSS and even JS:
<s:tag name="note">
<div style="color:red;">
Note: {{@content}}!!
</div>
</s:tag>
<note>Sundown is awesome ;)</note>
:note Sundown is awesome :)
<div style="color:red">Note: Sundown is awesome :)!!</div>
Feels kind of like Sundown:HTML::SCSS:CSS. If you can communicate this (vs being an improvement on markdown), you'll probably get people to take a closer look.
Sundown and Markdown are both HTML preprocessors with different goals.
I feel like this is more much comparable to, as others note, something like Jade/Pug, than Markdown. And, it may be a very good competitor to those sorts of tools, I dunno.
Seems like Sundown is a programmers tool; Markdown is an end user tool (often used by programmers in contexts where they don't want to program, like commenting on forums and tickets and such). But, I guess they are all just taking some sort of input and spitting out some HTML. It just seems like Markdown isn't the right thing to compare it to.
So it's XML and XSL.
Here are some clickables of SunSed:
- https://www.sunsed.com/pricing
- https://www.sunsed.com/tags/s A list of builtin tags for Sundown
I am fine with a new markup if it's quick and to the point. I believe that we need to give the markdown/reStructuredText things a fresh look. At the very least, we may come up with ideas to improve existing languages.
Are you planning on opening the source to Sundown? What's the current implementation running in? (golang, python, c, etc?)
Some of the other commenters are mentioning markdown being fast. This is probably true. Since there are processors for markdown in C. Actually, when I first glanced the title, I thought it was https://github.com/vmg/sundown.
In any event, that's just a naming issue. The bigger point is, I think the overall project at SunSed looks pretty cool. Simple markup turns into a nice website. Congratulations on having the website up!
Thank you very much!
> Are you planning on opening the source to Sundown?
Sundown is just a HTML preprocessor implemented in a few lines of regular expressions! I actually planned to open source it before writing the article but did not have the time.
However, I'm not planning on open sourcing the SunSed language compiler (the part that allows you to create custom html tags). But I will open source all the tags and libraries here:
In SGML, you can define arbitrary tokens (character sequences) that the parser replaces into something else, typically into start-element or end-element tags. Replacement text rules are defined in a context-sensitive way depending on the parent element wherein token(s) to replace appear as child content. For example, an asterisk could be mapped to <i>, and within an <i> element could be mapped to </i>, terminating it, and thereby implementing a small fragment of markdown.
This, together with tag omission/inference rules on a fully custom DTD vocabulary powerful to cover HTML5, gives you quite a formidable technique for markdown customization, based on an ISO standard.
https://github.com/vmg/sundown
Strongly suggest renaming your project as early as possible.
Solution[0] = "A good name"
First, I cameup with "SML" (SunSed Markup Language) but eventually decided to go with "Sundown" (SunSed Markdown) because it's a cooler name that almost describes itself.
You are right about the name confusion! It has been several years since the last commit to the /vmg/sundown and even if it was active it's not a very common Markdown implementation (although it's one of the best).
Sundown is the name of that one feature of the language that I explained in the article.
In our website https://www.sunsed.com we refer to the whole thing as SunSed language.
> even if it was active it's not a very common Markdown implementation
First, even if this was true, it's still _not_ OK to name your project Sundown.
Second, _my_ Sundown is the most used Markdown engine in the world. It has powered all Markdown rendering in GitHub.com and Reddit.com for more than 5 years, and it has rendered billions more documents than all other Markdown parsers out there.
Could you please not be an asshole and rename your project? It's really not that hard to come up with a name for a parser. Don't steal mine.
I have updated the blog post and changed the name to "SunSed Short-form HTML tags" it also better describes what it is.
I have high respect for you and your work and admit that the way I came up with the name was sloppy!
> ... create a platform that makes it super easy for developers to create awesome websites without forcing them to learn new stuff (language, syntax, platform, framework and more)
And yet:
> I explain what was wrong with Markdown and why I finally had to create my own Markdown alternative
I do not think a new, custom HTML template language solves the original goal.
SunSed is for developers with HTML knowledge. You can use SunSed language to create custom HTML tags (abstract HTML, CSS and JavaScript) and then Sundown to abstract your HTML.
I think Sundown is very easy to learn and SunSed language has very little learning curve because it follows the exact syntax of HTML:
Aside from the difference in syntax (which is huge), I would say convenience.
SunSed = Hosting + IDE + CDN + a new programming language + Layout and Template system (like Jekyll and Hugo) + Many built-in tags to abstract things like embedding Youtube videos in a responsive way (which is not easy -- requires so many div wrappers).
You can also create your own tags and share it with others. I have started the process of creating tags for useful and popular libraries:
If you know HTML, you already know the syntax of SunSed programming language, and can create fast dynamic websites with ease by abstracting your website content in custom HTML tags!
After all, SunSed is a programmable website builder.
A friend of mine who works at a newspaper noted that it was really hard to get a lot of people in the mindset of Markdown, because it requires users to think about their writing in terms of HTML, which is harder than it sounds for some. This seems like it pushes things further in a direction where people who aren't code-savvy can't get on board.
The other thing to keep in mind: The reason why Markdown is great is because it's readable even without being rendered. This is not, because it simplifies the HTML without abstracting it. That's a tough hurdle to get past for a lot of folks.
There are the obvious arguments about plain-text readability and additional standards, I would suggest thinking about this not as a Markdown replacement but rather a different use-case entirely. I understand the author framed it as a replacement. While that may have been the impetus to the project, i think the result is something entirely it's own.
Markdown has a place when a document stands to be published/shared in multiple formats. I use it regularly for blog posts that i also email to others for feedback in plaintext. Sundown looks to me like a light-weight, text-focused haml. Usable when something is intended to only be published in HTML, but where you want to be freed from that markup.
> I would suggest thinking about this not as a Markdown replacement but rather a different use-case entirely.
You are right! I'm thinking about the same thing here! I could even give it no name and instead present it as part of the SunSed programming language (the part that lets you create custom HTML tags).
It's like back in the day when someone would proclaim smarty to be a disaster and then release their template system that was conceptually exactly the same baring some syntactic sugar
I agree with the learning part but SunSed is not a toy language. I could be wrong about how valuable it's going to be but it's definitely more than a toy.
Sundown is a very simple preprocessor that plays well with the SunSed language. With SunSed, you can create your own HTML tags (that run server-side) and abstract HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
Sundown is just the icing on the cake that lets you easily use your custom tags. SunSed language is a complete programming language, you can checkout the tags here:
Again, I could be wrong on how valuable it's going to be for front-end developers. But I strongly feel that it's a little bit more than a toy! ;)
> Our promise to you ul.[sic] We are dedicated to supporting our products forever (or until the last customer turns off the lights). ul.[sic] If we create a new version of SunSed that breaks backward compatibility we will support the older version forever. p.[sic]
[0] - http://haml.info/
<s:tag name="note">
<div style="color:red;">
Note: {{@content}}!!
</div>
</s:tag>
<note>Sundown is awesome ;)</note>
:note Sundown is awesome :)1. Sundown is the name of a Markdown library written in C: https://github.com/vmg/sundown. That Sundown is pretty widely known and used among Markdown implementers. As such, when/if the OP's project takes off, it is going to be confusing (for awhile).
2. Also, the name itself doesn't strongly suggest that it's an alternative to Markdown. Do recall that Markdown's etymology comes from "(HTML) markup". For the Markdown-implemented-in-C Sundown, the name worked because it evoked its relationship with Markdown. In this case, that's not what the project is about. If the intention was to evoke Markdown, then they should have kept the "Mark" part of it, not the "down" part of it.
The explicit use of the colon makes things a bit saner for users - we’ve all written some ‘unexpected’ markdown before; between the many different flavors (especially line breaking behavior), numerous symbols, and numerous ways to do the same thing (like underlining, bullet points and images). I can see this being a big relief for end-users for certain use-cases.
I’d love to try it out if I could see some source code (or a live demo I don’t have to sign up for). Do you plan on setting up a specification?
The CommonMark project has not been abandoned; the CommonMark C parser was implemented on GitHub earlier this year and is used to render Markdown across all repositories: https://githubengineering.com/a-formal-spec-for-github-markd...
Do you have a parser that converts SunDown to HTML already? I can build it as my first project in Rust while attempting to learn it.
This is a little strange tbh. The majority of markdown parsers will allow inline html elements too.
If you're trying to do a large structured document, which will need block specific styling, try Pug. (Formerly Jade.) HAML & Slim also solve similar problems and have the benefit of a pretty significant userbase. (All support embedded Markdown)
Sundown is looking very much like a naive and poorly thought out also ran.
Quickly reading about pug feels like it converts templates to some JS files which I don't want.
I'd like a Markdown/SunDown/custom markup to one inlined HTML, which I can deploy wherever I want..
Nb: pug aka Jade used to convert direct to HTML, I also lament the "everything the JavaScript" silliness.
: There is some <i>italic</i> text in this line.
This is seven more characters than the equivalent Markdown! And two more than the equivalent HTML. And includes at least five characters that are a bitch to type on most screen keyboards.
Image tag in Sundown is easier than Markdown:
:s:img http://link-to-image.jpg image alt tag
:twitter:embed http://link-to-tweet
You are absolutely right! There is a trade-off. Some tags are easier in Markdown (e.g. bold, italic, inline code and a few others). But you cannot extend markdown with your own custom elements can you?
Sundown by itself is not that useful. It gets really useful when you use it as a preprocessor for your own custom HTML tags.
Here I explain how you can create your own server-side HTML tags:
https://www.sunsed.com/manual/creating-tag
Again, Sundown is just a HTML preprocessor you can write all of the above tags like this:
<s:youtube>
http://youtube-link
</s:youtube>People use markdown as a text and word formatting system that is readable in plain text and easily transforms into HTML.
The the main point you are driving to people in this thread are the custom tags which goes against the plain text readability and adds extra complexity in this scope. You are competing against HTML preprocessors that are primarily used for that reason - to be converted into fully fledged HTML. Markdown is not in this scope by any means.
It looks like it’s an alternate syntax for HTML angle-bracket tags. (Personally, I see no value in that. I can see it’s arguably “cleaner”-looking, but not by much and at the substantial cost of a non-standard syntax.)
But thing is, talking about performance and scale goes exactly against your project's credibility. These are pretty much the two dumbest criterias when it comes to markup syntaxes.
There are some good ideas here, though. I would like to suggest that there has to be a good way to implement class and id tags in a language like this. That is the only real issue I have with the Markdown spec.
But yeah, "Too many implementations of Markdown" is not an issue a new markup language is going to solve.
"Markdown is slow!" is nonsensical: its implementations are slow (it seems the author tested this, but the link supposed to supply evidence doesn't -- I find it hard to believe that aren't fast implementations of Markdown, but perhaps). Nothing in the language makes it inherently slow.
> cmark can render a Markdown version of War and Peace in the blink of an eye (127 milliseconds on a ten year old laptop, vs. 100-400 milliseconds for an eye blink). In our benchmarks, cmark is 10,000 times faster than the original Markdown.pl, and on par with the very fastest available Markdown processors.
It has a long road ahead, most likely will fizzle but that doesn't mean we can't use it.
My new stuff is in Kramdown, and my old stuff is HTML with some Jekyll headers at the top. I did have to go back through some of it and clean it up too.
If I move to something new, I'd just render everything I have with Kramdown into HTML and move on to the next thing.
That's sadly how we have to deal with these engines.
Edit expanding:
I liked jade but stopped using because of jsx, and disliking having to research solutions during unique use cases. I also have learned markdown fairly quickly, and like it more now, but I personally don’t think it is as good of an experience reading plain text files as my own “plain text hacks” that I would use to format docs destined to be read in plain text. I feel that it clutters a nicely organized personal note, which adds to mental overhead.
Markdown isn't very aesthetically pleasing in plain text IMO. It's awkward to type, and it doesn't handle indenting the way people would normally create lists and indents in text. (## H2, ### H3 .. really??)
Example: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gbraad/resume/master/resum... => http://gbraad.nl/resume/resume.html
I stopped reading after the first introduction of 'the syntax', as the intro either does not mention the why, or it totally misses the point.
Page not found. The requested URL /sign-up was not found on this server.
Question is, do we need another alternative to the Markdown alternatives we already have?
This is why every week you see a new markdown implementation which is just ever-so-slightly different than the other, with every service and tool implementing it's own. I dread markdown, because I know there will be extensions. And the extension syntax doesn't look nice/simple. Syntactically, asciidoc or rst is much more thought-of than any markdown-like syntax I've seen.
This is also the main reason I really discourage markdown for anything but a comment system. Just start with something more complete if you plan on documentation.
I was strongly against md on the documentation for julia for exactly these reasons. Not even one year later, md in julia is already contains extensions which are oh-just-very-similar-to-but-not-quite the others.
https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html
Edit: you've continued to post uncivil/unsubstantive comments for quite a while now. We ban accounts that do that. If you can't or won't fix this, we're going to ban you, so please fix this.