From: matt@... (matt neuburg)
Date: 2009-04-09T09:15:10+09:00
Subject: Re: [ANN] bluecloth-2.0.0 released

Michael Granger <ged@FaerieMUD.org> wrote:

> I tried to post this announcement twice yesterday, but both seem to  
> have gotten lost. Anyway, I'd like to announce a brand new version of
> BlueCloth. You can read the announcement here:
> 
>    http://deveiate.org/bluecloth2-announcement.html

Cool, but my response to this is the same as my response to RDiscount.
I'm deeply invested in years of using the original Perl Markdown. I'd
love to get off that, but in order for me to do so, it isn't enough that
a Markdown clone pass some abstract tests; it must generate HTML that is
functionally identical to the HTML that Perl Markdown generates from the
same original text. Discount, and therefore BlueCloth 2, does not.

Just to be perfectly clear, I am using a Perl script, Markdown.pl, that
is marked as follows:

$VERSION = '1.0.1';
# Tue 14 Dec 2004

So, let's proceed to some examples:

BlueCloth.new("I'm testing  ").to_html
#=> =====
<p>I'm testing<br/>
</p>

That <br/> is functionally significant (it causes extra vertical
whitespace), and Perl Markdown does *not* generate it. BlueCloth is
apparently treating the extra spaces at the end of the input string as
somehow significant.

This next one is a little more involved; I'll use a here document to
display my input text:

s = <<END
* testing

        pre

  more li
END
puts BlueCloth.new(s).to_html
#=> ====
<ul>
<li><p>testing</p>

<pre><code>pre
</code></pre></li>
</ul>


<p>  more li</p>

That's a little hard to read (I suppose I could have run it thru tidy),
but the thing to notice is that although the <pre> block is part of the
<li> block, the last <p> block is not. But here's what Perl Markdown
gives:

<ul>
<li><p>testing</p>

<pre><code>pre
</code></pre>

<p>more li</p></li>
</ul>

As you can see, the last <p> block (containing "more li") *is* part of
the <li> block. Since that is what Perl Markdown does, and since I have
lots of text that relies upon Markdown behaving in that way, I naturally
incline to the view that that is the "correct" answer and that
BlueCloth's output is "wrong".

m.
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