> Clients always want wysiwyg editors and you know that's bad for them, so this is a great compromise for them and for you
So far any time Ive released a content editing text area that uses markdown to the mass public, it's resulted in everyone treating it like a normal text box because they don't want to learn markdown.
Wysiwyg editors, as much as we hate them, always gets much better adoption.
Markdown is primarily for writerly writers with workflows. That's where all the benefits accrue.
That's where it matters whether mark-up is done inline with content creation, or whether it's a post-pass process of fiddly buttons and menu options. That's where it matters whether the mark-up is lightweight, or overbearing. That's where it matters whether formatting is treated consistently from one piece of software to the next, or a constant surprise. That's where it matters whether the resulting file is locked away in a proprietary binary format, or not. Etcetera.
If you're building a proprietary end-to-end service -- for editing a little bit of text, storing that text, and then displaying that text -- whether your solution incorporates markdown is, at best, probably irrelevant.
I'm nodding my head in agreement to the points you make and wondering why we're not having the conversation about AsciiDoc instead, especially with regard to the constant surprise you mention.
So far any time Ive released a content editing text area that uses markdown to the mass public, it's resulted in everyone treating it like a normal text box because they don't want to learn markdown. Wysiwyg editors, as much as we hate them, always gets much better adoption.