Ha! This is a really interesting perspective—I think you're saying, "it's all plain text, so there's no advantage to using Markdown instead of docx".
I think others have an opposite view, but on the same grounds. The argument seems to be: it's all plain text, so docx is overkill, so markdown is more technically efficient!
There's some benefit to using the tool I know best (emacs, for me), so it's nice to use a "native" format that also gives me my usual keybindings, macros, etc.
But there's no doubt it just offloads the inefficiency to a different step of the process. I'm more comfortable with inputting text, but it requires post-hoc reformatting, and I'd have to use a different word processor for post-editor changes...
The "markdown is a more efficient solution from a technical perspective" argument doesn't hold a lot of weight with me...the practical overhead of docx is minimal, so unless you prize technical purity over all else, I don't think there _is_ a benefit.
The benefit is the rest of the pure text toolchain. Like being able to use Git. I can confirm, for example, how long a typo has existed in my book by looking at the Git history. Maybe that's a bit academic, but you get the point. I have the complete history of everything I've ever written.
Another example: because formatting is reified in Markdown, I can grep for it. Did I misuse italics? With one command I can find every single place where I used italics in my entire book. I don't think you can even do that in Word. Good luck reading a multi-hundred page manuscript to find all of the places you may have made the same mistake.
Another example: Word provides styles, but honestly, who has discipline to use them? Most people I know manually insert page breaks, centered text, and X number blank spaces at the top of a page to make a new chapter. In Markdown, all of my markup gets converted into Word styles automatically and then I can create a reference doc to apply the style I want. I'm writing semantically correct styles in my documents all the time with no additional effort.
Well, to be fair, MS Word maintains a full history of every edit that was made.
And, find-and-replace for specific formatting is supported out-of-the-box.
Finally, cmd-i / cmd-u / cmd-b are pretty easy default bindings, and setting up shortcuts for more intricate, specific styles is straightforward in Word.
I share your preference for using an efficient tool—I'm a die-hard md+git practitioner. But the "most people I know" argument is not a good basis for rejecting real, rich features in software that works well for other people.
I am also curious: why do you care about semantic correctness? It's OK if that's just your preference, but it's not something that moves the needle for me....I'm not sure why I should care!
(edit to add: my comment sounds glib and a little sharper that I intended. That wasn't my intent!)
Or alternatively you can sort of hack it with track changes, but it's not automatic and there is a long list of caveats. In short, track changes is really intended for a single round of changes on top of a base document, not for permanently tracking the changes on a document over its entire lifetime:
Now maybe a Word expert will come along and tell me how to do it properly. :-) But even if they do that sort of proves my point, which is that Word is a large, complex piece of software and even if it hypothetically supports some feature, doesn't make it intuitive or easy to use in that way. (Or that you won't hit a bunch of corner cases when you try to use it.)
I do stand corrected about the find-replace formatting, so thanks for that. But on the other hand, I don't think it really contradicts my point either.
To be clear, I do think Word serves its user base! For low- to moderate- tech savvy users, it's does exactly what it needs to. And I'm not saying everyone should switch to Markdown. But for those of us who have the technical chops to go beyond it, there are some real advantages to working with other tools that shouldn't be discounted.
Well said! Though, I would say that this statement is a good description of git, too:
> a large, complex piece of software and even if it hypothetically supports some feature, doesn't make it intuitive or easy to use in that way. (Or that you won't hit a bunch of corner cases when you try to use it.)
A takeaway I get from this entire conversation is that the real pain point is not the drafting stage, but the editing stage. The latter is (a) collaborative, with (b) non-technical stakeholders...there doesn't seem to be a good way to both use my favorite editor, AND play nicely w my editor's stack (or lack thereof).
Good thing I don't have an editor...that would require me to actually write things :D
But if you cared about the history, why wouldn't you always turn them on by default? "Full history" in git is also an opt-in model for maintaining a history...
I think others have an opposite view, but on the same grounds. The argument seems to be: it's all plain text, so docx is overkill, so markdown is more technically efficient!
There's some benefit to using the tool I know best (emacs, for me), so it's nice to use a "native" format that also gives me my usual keybindings, macros, etc.
But there's no doubt it just offloads the inefficiency to a different step of the process. I'm more comfortable with inputting text, but it requires post-hoc reformatting, and I'd have to use a different word processor for post-editor changes...
The "markdown is a more efficient solution from a technical perspective" argument doesn't hold a lot of weight with me...the practical overhead of docx is minimal, so unless you prize technical purity over all else, I don't think there _is_ a benefit.