The perceived simplicity of the format (driven by the naivete of the implementation) played a significant role in making it popular, but lays a minefield of bugs and ambiguities for implementors especially if they want any combination of sanity and interoperability.
Re:The Future of Markdown
by gordonguthrie on Friday October 26, 2012 @12:07PM
(#4702820)
Wisest thing in this thread.
It is a great format.
The original parser (and specification) has serious problems.
Being great at designing a format and writing code are two different things: one can be great at once while being terrible at the other.