> Call me old school but I find lightweight markup to be a hack job.
The best way to think of it is that markdown is a replacement for .txt. It's not a typesetting language, it's just a conventional way to structure text documents.
Most of the elements of markdown are already there in .txt files from the 80s and 90s. All markup does is standardize how to do headers, lists, code blocks and bold/italic so that you can generate documents that actually contain those elements, but could also just treat a markdown file as a normal .txt.
The best way to think of it is that markdown is a replacement for .txt. It's not a typesetting language, it's just a conventional way to structure text documents.
Most of the elements of markdown are already there in .txt files from the 80s and 90s. All markup does is standardize how to do headers, lists, code blocks and bold/italic so that you can generate documents that actually contain those elements, but could also just treat a markdown file as a normal .txt.