Markup languages for this blog
As I mentioned in my initial post, I'm using the awesomely cool Jekyll site generator to bring you this blog. One of the nice things about Jekyll is that it allows the user to write their blog posts in any markup language the tool supports. In reality, this all boils down to two choices: Textile and Markdown.
Just like any technology debates (Windows vs. Mac vs. Linux, emacs vs. vi, etc.), there are a lot of so-called 'religious debates' about Textile and Markdown, both with its loyal fans. Just doing a quick Google search yields a lot of different forums where this discussion has played out.
I pondered for a few hours while setting up this blog, to decide which markup language I would use. Instead of blindly choosing one or the other, I tried both Textile and Markdown for my first blog post. I found that Markdown was the one for me. I found the finished Markdown post more readable than the Textile version (like links, headers, text formatting, etc.)
That doesn't mean I hate Textile, though. It's pretty awesome, too, and it's a hell of a lot better to write something for a blog or a wiki with Textile than HTML or nothing at all. I just decided to stick to Markdown (and its C-written Ruby implementation rdiscount) for the time being.
In any case, choice is awesome.