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I love the idea of Starboard. But seems like the development has stalled?

Yes. Last commit was 5 months ago [1]. Seems like a great idea though.

What I don't like it is that they invented yet another markdown syntax for code cells - it is the opening bracket # %[python] with no closing bracket.

There already is a popular markdown code cell syntax of [2]

```python

```

[1] https://github.com/gzuidhof/starboard-notebook

[2] https://github.github.com/gfm/#fenced-code-blocks

The format is only partially invented, it follows Jupytext [0], but adds support for cell metadata. There is no obvious way to get that in fenced codeblocks, especially with the ability to spread it over multiple lines so it plays well with version control.

One more consideration is that it's not "Markdown with code blocks interspersed", one might as well use plaintext or AsciiDoc.

Of course there are tradeoffs.. I wish I had more time to work on it.

[0]: https://github.com/gzuidhof/starboard-notebook/blob/master/d...

[1]: https://github.com/mwouts/jupytext

Thanks for the clarifications. I still don't like it, but I understand.

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