I really wish their was concise formal spec for markdown, rather than a multi-page essay. It makes it incredibly difficult for anyone trying to create something to parse it. There is no mechanical way for go from spec -> parser.
Is there any common spec where you can mechanically go from spec to parser? HTTP, SMTP, DNS, HTML, CSS, Javascript, Ruby, Python, C, ... I basically know of nothing in widespread use with a spec that can actually be converted directly into working code.
Is it really useful to write a formal spec for Github Markdown? The software they use to parse and render it is open source. If you want to know how exactly something works, you can read the source.
Is it really useful to write a formal spec for HTML? The software we use to parse and render it is open source. If you want to know how exactly something works, you can read the source.
Having used and maintained a Swift translation of the StackOverflow .NET markdown processor, please, when there is a proposal to use source as a spec, burn it with fire. Scatter the ashes.
Reading the sources and trying to understand it takes a lot longer than looking at bnf and cranking out recursive descent parser based on it or a parser generator.
I think its quite difficult to do though.