The reason I write in markdown is because it is fast and keyboard-driven. I don't want to see it when I'm looking at my notes or editing them. The idea that it is meant to be seen is no more than a personal preference.
How is it faster to press `*` than `Ctrl-I` in any other rich text editor?
> The idea that it is meant to be seen is no more than a personal preference.
Actually, the entire philosophy of Markdown is that, even if you didn't process it into HTML or some form of rich text, it uses common conventions that have been used across Usenet, IRC, and plaintext files for years, and is thus readable without ever being processed. In fact, you can likely take various plaintext files and process them and they'll gain many incidental markups and highlights.
Meaning, Markdown is Markdown without needing to be turned into HTML or rich text. It is, in itself, a great way to universally markup text as people have been doing online for years.
(it also ought to italicize the selection when there's an active selection, but i haven't implemented that yet)
i think this is a superior interaction paradigm to the paradigm where ctrl-i sets an italics mode that doesn't visibly change anything near the cursor, but affects the future text you type. that design not only usually requires more keystrokes but causes mode errors. this is how ctrl-i and ctrl-b should always have worked, and if larry tesler had thought of the idea by 01983, that's how they always would have worked
however, the keystroke ctrl-i is easier to type than the keystroke alt-*
I have a tooling issue with your method, perhaps in the same manner as you feel about C-i. To me "italicize $count previous words" makes far more sense than expanding the region on repeated calls. Although to be fair I can wrap over visual mode for that functionality which would feel more comfortable to me; "ge" end of previous word, "v", $navigation, ...
My point - to the extent I have one - is that there is probably a degree of personal comfort that colors our reactions to people using C-i.
¹ Basically "imap <C-S-8> <Esc>bcw*<C-r>-*<C-o>w". I'll give it some more thought, along with adding v:count and non-* support, before it hits my vimrc.
If you're writing a new sentence in MSWord, you type "Emphasize words <Ctrl-I>like this<Ctrl-I>."
If you write a new sentence in Markdown, you type "Emphasize words *like this*."
The keys are neighbors even, at least in a US keyboard layout, so there is not a reason most US users would say it's "faster" to type * than Ctrl-I. (And if other layout users disagree, okay, but I don't think that was in the scope of the original point.)
The problem with Word-like editor styling is exactly that the boundaries are invisible, and the style is applied destructively to everything within highlighted range, instead of non-destructively by the range itself. What I mean is, if in the example above, I want to change the emphasis to only italicize "this", I can kill the first * and place it a word later. In Word-style editing, I'll have to highlight the whole "like " sequence and un-italicize it, hoping I didn't miss a space or a dot that invisibly retains the italics and then screw up editing for you down the line.
Is this very different from "<left> <Ctrl+Shift+left> <Ctrl+Shift+Left> <Ctrl+I>"?
What I also know is that when out company switched to visual editor only, people stopped using these. They stopped writing long texts - and those were those the most valuable.
The shift key is right under my pinkie, a bit easier than the CMD key on my Mac (much less the Ctrl) for me.
I can't imagine how it works for people who aren't pretty good at the syntax.