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Comment by ihaveajob | Hacker News Reader

In 1980 Richard Stallman found out that he couldn't fix a laser printer they just installed at MIT. That [and other events](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#Events_leadin...) led 4 years later to the birth of the GNU project. Maybe the tide is finally turning, at least in some aspects.

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Reddit markup doesn't work on ycombinator. Use square brackets and a number to designate the link [0] then put the URL at the bottom of your comment.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/StallmanWasRight/

That's just normal markdown... sometimes I wish HN had basic markdown support: italics, `code`, [link](http://), etc.

Edit: looks like italics works...

> sometimes I wish HN had basic markdown support: italics, `code`, [link](http\://)

I like seeing the URL (or at least the domain) before I click. Hovering over is annoying, particularly on mobile.

Indentation also works. It's intended for code blocks.

  An indented block.
  Don't use it for quotes.
  People, especially on mobile, will complain.

I think it would be neat if HN were updated to support Markdown formatting, except that links could be auto-converted to a footnote-link as is the convention on this board.

> Reddit markup

Oh boy.

It's not pure markdown, they have their own parser.

https://github.com/reddit/snudown

But the markup in question is pure markdown. There was nothing Reddit-specific used in this thread.

Please explain why it's markdown. Is Reddit's link format not just BBCode [0]? Honest question, no snark.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBCode

No, BBCode looks like:

    [url=https://example.com]link text[/url]

whereas Markdown looks like:

    [link text](https://example.com)

Compare the BBCode article you linked to the Markdown article [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown#Example

Thanks. Have to admit, I'm still confused, especially after reading the first sentence on that page...

>Markdown is a lightweight markup language

Clearly in over my head on this, I'm just going to stop using the term altogether.

Both BBCode and Markdown are markup languages. ("Markdown" is a play on "markup language".)

BBCode was used on old internet message boards. You'd write something like [b]text[/b] to get bolded text, [i]text[/i] for italics, [img] to embed images, etc. BBCode tags (like [b]) mirrored simple HTML tags usually: since message board posters weren't really trusted, allowing regular HTML was out of the question.

Markdown is a newer markup language that was intended to be easier to read and write. Instead of [i]text[/i], you write

    *text*

which is actually one of the few formatting options HN recognizes [0]: text. Bold is double stars, links are this [link text](url) format, images are ![url](alt text), etc.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc

Cheers for this. I'm old and that's why I thought it was BBCode. Markup is such a loose term that I couldn't figure out what the problem was. You've put it to rest now though, I get it, whew.

Learned something new, pedantry FTW!

Stallman is often viewed a weird guy but he definitely has seen a lot of stuff long before anybody else. I wonder how much impact he could have if his presentation was a little better.

I really wonder about this too.

I guess that phrase about unreasonable men being the only ones who bring about change does apply here.

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