[Hitch]

Maybe I'm daft--lord knows, many around here would certainly and inarguably assert that as QED--but isn't this the same freaking discussion that everybody had around DocBook? Around XSLT? That it was all gonna be future-proof, that it was simple, that it provided cleaner formating, blah-blah-blah? And what happened? Where'd THAT go?

I'll tell you where: it went the same way as the dinosaur. There wasn't a damn thing wrong with it, and frankly, a lot RIGHT with it. It was infinitely more usable, flexible and powerful than what we're all stuck doing now.

And yet: it's DEAD. Deader'n Julius Caesar. Why? Utter lack of adoption.

Maybe I'm conflating two topics, but I don't think so. Some of you want cleaner code. Great. But the only way that dog's ever going to hunt is if it's adopted WIDELY. Otherwise, we are all just spinning our wheels. If you're only making books for yourself, super-duper. Then, hell, you can do whatever you want.

But for the rest of us, all this "let's do markdown" or some variant thereof is just wheel-spinning folly. Because it won't happen. Authors and other literary creatures are not going to give up programs that do stuff FOR them, just because the output is cleaner.

Want proof? Look at all the utterly goofy and frivolous "writing programs" like Scrivener, Liquid Story Binder, and the like. They sell like hotcakes, for $40-$45/pop, compared to something nearly more powerful, and certainly more useful, YWriter (which is also FREE, mind you). Why? Besides marketing? Because they freaking LOOK COOL. They have FOOFY shit in them. "Desk Backgrounds" and "themes" and all that crap. They have "tools" that don't actually DO anything (the storyboarding "function" in LSBXE is my favorite completely useless function), but, bygod, they let someone FEEL like they are a "real writer."

The output from all of these isn't even as damn clean as plain RTF from a Word file, but you can't tell them that. Every single thing that you can do in Scrivener, that sells it, you can do in Word, too. But hey, nobody sold it as a "writer's program" with, OH WOW, integrated MUSIC!!, so they'd rather pay $40 for a "writer's program."

So, sorry, as much as I'd love--LOVE--to see something like DocBook, Markdown, yadda, come into play, from my perspective--which is absolutely admittedly selfish and centered around what I receive in, from my clientele--I just don't see that being a big hit.

And this post isn't aimed at or really written to, RobertDDL. He's made his choice, and he's doing what he wants. But for all the other sorta endless variants on "let's do a markdown editor," or what-have-you...it's great for Geeksters, but it's going to require someone who doesn't mind investing thousands of hours in a HOBBY that will never do anything but let them feel good about what they've done. It'll be like Sigil was, when Valloric had it and then decided to dump it--dependent on the kindness of strangers. Look around on this forum, going back 3-4 years. Look at ALL the new threads about "new tools" for making ebooks, new programs.

That's all I'm saying. Don't mean to piss on anyone's Oat Toasties, or rain on parades, either. (And, n.b.: I'm beta-testing TWO, count 'em, TWO new "ebook-making tools" right now. I'll give them honest tries, but it's going to take a LOT to convince me to give up using good old NoteTabPro and Sigil, in favor of something or somethings else. Because when push comes to shove, the clean-up issues in files are the same, all the time--and most of it can't be automated, not without sacrificing quality. The human eye is still needed, and that's where ALL the time comes in. I just don't see the bulk of users deciding to make my life easier any time soon.)

My $.02, FWIW.

Hitch