Show HN: Ditto – Markdown documentation system | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Ditto – Markdown documentation system

github.com

41 pointschutsu25 comments

This is great! I'm building our docs using Aglio right now and it's great - this seems similar but with some interesting differences. Really good to see more options out there!

I don't understand all the fuzz about Markdown. Doesn't people realize that it exists other much more powerful lightweight markup languages like AsciiDoc?

I've never heard of AsciiDoc, but I'd say the biggest advantage that Markdown has is its ubiquity. It's used by GitHub, StackOverflow, Reddit, and even Tumblr has an option for it.

Also the fact that there are multiple (and good) client-side Markdown libraries while stuff like AsciiDoc generally requires server-side rendering (and the associated server load and round-trip penalties).

Unless I'm missing it, there's no pure client-side AsciiDoc?

[1] seems to be an AsciiDoc render on client-side, though have no idea if it's any good though...

[1]: http://asciidoctor.org/news/2013/05/21/asciidoctor-js-render...

Yeah, hard to say without a live demo. Also, downloading an entire Ruby interpreter in JS seems a little on the heavy side. If you were going to go that route, might as well use texlive.js and get a full-blown LaTeX system. :-)

Cool nonetheless.

I think ubiquity comes with knowledge, if there exists superior tools, people tend to use them eventually. I know that GitHub supports AsciiDoc already, one would hope that the other ones become enlightened!

It was simply the plain-text format I am currently using, I'm sure I can add in compatibility for AsciiDoc no probs. Just a matter of adding in an AsciiDoc renderer. :)

It looks powerful, but with a much steeper learning curve for non technical users[1]. I could see the nested list support being great for outlines, and tables look a lot more robust than in markdown, but I do not know if it is worth the tradeoffs of going against markdown's ubiquity.

[1] http://powerman.name/doc/asciidoc

Does Google crawl this documentation? I know they have some JS support in their crawler, but is it enough that it would actually index a docsite built with this tool?

Not sure Google would be able to index the docs, since they are in markdown format. But I'm not an expert in how Google index the pages.

No, google doesn't. I've built a similar solution for the Cocos2D documentation that is going to be released soon. I've added a php server component to deliver HTML snapshots to google crawlers for that purpose.

I have now released my similar documentation system that supports SEO: https://github.com/Ben-G/Lightdoc

Almost looks like Slate Docs[1].

1. https://github.com/tripit/slate

I've used both Multi-Markdown and Pandoc in past projects so I was intrigued by the associated live demo. Was it generated using Ditto?

Yep, essentially ditto. :)

I would like to add that nothing is technically generated* they. The markdown files are rendered on the fly using a Javascript Markdown parser. The layout is simply HTML5 and CSS, with a dash of jQuery to make the buttons work.

Sorry guys I had to change the name because mdoc is already used by other programs. I changed it to `ditto`.

New Link: http://chutsu.github.io/ditto/

I assume you searched and discovered that ditto is also a BSD command for copying files, which is included on all Macs?[1]

This conflict may not be as confusing as the original name. I gather from the docs that you never invoke your version of ditto from the command line?

[1]: https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin...

... Atleast it doesn't clash with the established documentation system mdoc.

Ok, we've edited the title and url of the post to match.

Yeah, because there aren't any documentation systems called mdoc already, at all.

http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man7/mdoc.7.html http://www.mono-project.com/Mdoc

Related: http://mdocml.bsd.lv/

alright, no need to be a smart arse, I wasn't aware of those tools.

Yes, that comment was uncivil and broke the HN guidelines. It should have just neutrally pointed out the other tools.

This reply also breaks the guidelines. Please don't reply to incivility with incivility on HN. It's hard not to, but doing so only makes things worse.

Sorry, got it.

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