Stop Programming in Markdown
The article argues against using Markdown for programming, citing its limitations for code logic, poor error handling, and lack of structure. It advocates for using proper programming languages instead of Markdown for development tasks.
Background
This author argues that Markdown—the lightweight text-formatting language used everywhere from GitHub READMEs to Notion docs—has become a de facto programming environment via "literate programming" tools (e.g., Quarto, Observable, Jupyter Notebooks, R Markdown) that let you weave code and prose in the same file. The piece pushes back on this trend, claiming Markdown is a poor medium for serious software due to its ambiguous syntax, lack of structure, poor tooling for debugging and refactoring, and the mess it creates in version control. Key context: Markdown was designed for simple, readable web formatting, not as a host for executable logic. The "polyglot" Markdown ecosystem has ballooned beyond its original purpose, and the author suggests using purpose-built languages/tools instead of trying to turn a markup format into an IDE.