Interesting viewpoint, though not one that persuades me.
At least not today ;-)
Human expression is ultimately ambiguous. In creating some typographic output, you've got to ultimately resolve or remove that ambiguity. Preferably in some consistent fashion.
There's an inherent tension there. And either you live with the ambiguity or you resolve it. I lean on the "deambiguate" side. Maybe that means using Markdown as a starting point and translating it ultimately to some less-ambiguous (but also less convenient) format, as I've noted.
But that means that the "authoritative source" (Markdown manuscript) is not authoritative, at least as regards formatting guidelines. Whether or not this is actually a more accurate reflection of the status quo ante in previous, print-based, typographic practice, in which an author submits a text but a typesetter translates that into a typographic projection, making interpretations where necessary to resolve ambiguities or approximate initial intent, I don't know.
Interesting from a philosophical intent/instantiation perspective though.
At least not today ;-)
Human expression is ultimately ambiguous. In creating some typographic output, you've got to ultimately resolve or remove that ambiguity. Preferably in some consistent fashion.
There's an inherent tension there. And either you live with the ambiguity or you resolve it. I lean on the "deambiguate" side. Maybe that means using Markdown as a starting point and translating it ultimately to some less-ambiguous (but also less convenient) format, as I've noted.
But that means that the "authoritative source" (Markdown manuscript) is not authoritative, at least as regards formatting guidelines. Whether or not this is actually a more accurate reflection of the status quo ante in previous, print-based, typographic practice, in which an author submits a text but a typesetter translates that into a typographic projection, making interpretations where necessary to resolve ambiguities or approximate initial intent, I don't know.
Interesting from a philosophical intent/instantiation perspective though.