Markdown vs XML

Overview

Markdown

Stacks22.1K

Followers16.5K

Votes960

XML

Stacks516

Followers315

Votes2

Markdown vs XML: What are the differences?

Introduction:

In this article, we will compare Markdown and XML and highlight their key differences. Markdown and XML are both widely used markup languages, but they have distinct characteristics and purposes. Markdown is a lightweight, plain-text formatting syntax used primarily for creating web content, while XML is a more structured markup language that represents data in a hierarchical format.

Syntax: One of the key differences between Markdown and XML lies in their syntax. Markdown uses a simplified syntax that is easy to read and write without needing any special software. It relies on characters like asterisks, underscores, and hash symbols for formatting. On the other hand, XML has a more complex syntax that requires specific opening and closing tags to define elements and attributes.
Purpose: Markdown is primarily intended for document formatting and simple content presentation. It focuses on readability and ease of use, making it suitable for creating blog posts, documentation, and other similar content. XML, on the other hand, is designed for storing and transmitting structured data. Its hierarchical format allows for more flexibility in representing complex data structures and metadata.
Flexibility: Markdown provides limited flexibility compared to XML. It has a predefined set of formatting options for headings, lists, images, links, and basic text formatting. XML, however, allows for unlimited customization with user-defined tags and attributes. This makes XML more suitable for representing diverse data structures and supporting specific application requirements.
Validation and Standards: Markdown does not have any standard validation mechanisms or strict rules for adherence. It is mainly an informal syntax specification, which means that interpretation may vary across different Markdown implementations. XML, on the other hand, has a defined structure defined by DTD or XML Schema. This allows for stricter data validation and adherence to specific standards.
Extensibility: Markdown is not easily extensible and does not provide a standardized way to add custom elements or functionality. XML, on the other hand, supports extensibility through the use of namespaces and can be extended with additional elements, attributes, and even custom document types.
Tooling and Ecosystem: Markdown has a minimalistic tooling ecosystem, with direct support in many text editors, content management systems, and blogging platforms. This makes it easy to use and integrate into existing workflows. XML, on the other hand, has a more extensive tooling ecosystem, with a wide range of libraries, parsers, and editor plugins available for handling XML data.

In summary, Markdown and XML differ in syntax, purpose, flexibility, validation, extensibility, and tooling ecosystem. Markdown is well-suited for basic content formatting, while XML is better suited for representing structured data.

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Advice on Markdown, XML

Rick

founder at Webcompose.ca

May 8, 2020

Needs adviceon

GitHub

Markdown

npm

I am a newbie to StackShare and the GitHub community. I want to understand how to use an include statement to get a collection of Markdown files to create a book. I have been told that there are a number of useful tools. My problem is that npm and Node.js are also very new to me. Any suggestions on how to get my md chapters into a printable document would be helpful.

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Comments

Detailed Comparison

Markdown	XML
Markdown is two things: (1) a plain text formatting syntax; and (2) a software tool, written in Perl, that converts the plain text formatting to HTML.	A markup language that defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable.
Statistics
Stacks 22.1K	Stacks 516
Followers 16.5K	Followers 315
Votes 960	Votes 2
Pros & Cons
Pros 345 Easy formatting 246 Widely adopted 194 Intuitive 132 Github integration 41 Great for note taking Cons 2 Cannot centralise (HTML code needed) 1 Inconsistend flavours eg github, reddit, mmd etc 1 Unable to indent tables 1 No underline 1 No right indentation	Pros 2 Fun

What are some alternatives to Markdown, XML?

JavaScript

JavaScript is most known as the scripting language for Web pages, but used in many non-browser environments as well such as node.js or Apache CouchDB. It is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm scripting language that is dynamic,and supports object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles.

Python

Python is a general purpose programming language created by Guido Van Rossum. Python is most praised for its elegant syntax and readable code, if you are just beginning your programming career python suits you best.

PHP

Fast, flexible and pragmatic, PHP powers everything from your blog to the most popular websites in the world.

Ruby

Ruby is a language of careful balance. Its creator, Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, blended parts of his favorite languages (Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp) to form a new language that balanced functional programming with imperative programming.

Java

Java is a programming language and computing platform first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. There are lots of applications and websites that will not work unless you have Java installed, and more are created every day. Java is fast, secure, and reliable. From laptops to datacenters, game consoles to scientific supercomputers, cell phones to the Internet, Java is everywhere!

Golang

Go is expressive, concise, clean, and efficient. Its concurrency mechanisms make it easy to write programs that get the most out of multicore and networked machines, while its novel type system enables flexible and modular program construction. Go compiles quickly to machine code yet has the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection. It's a fast, statically typed, compiled language that feels like a dynamically typed, interpreted language.

HTML5

HTML5 is a core technology markup language of the Internet used for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web. As of October 2014 this is the final and complete fifth revision of the HTML standard of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The previous version, HTML 4, was standardised in 1997.

C#

C# (pronounced "See Sharp") is a simple, modern, object-oriented, and type-safe programming language. C# has its roots in the C family of languages and will be immediately familiar to C, C++, Java, and JavaScript programmers.

Scala

Scala is an acronym for “Scalable Language”. This means that Scala grows with you. You can play with it by typing one-line expressions and observing the results. But you can also rely on it for large mission critical systems, as many companies, including Twitter, LinkedIn, or Intel do. To some, Scala feels like a scripting language. Its syntax is concise and low ceremony; its types get out of the way because the compiler can infer them.

Elixir

Elixir leverages the Erlang VM, known for running low-latency, distributed and fault-tolerant systems, while also being successfully used in web development and the embedded software domain.

Related Comparisons

Markdown vs XML: What are the differences?

Introduction:

Syntax: One of the key differences between Markdown and XML lies in their syntax. Markdown uses a simplified syntax that is easy to read and write without needing any special software. It relies on characters like asterisks, underscores, and hash symbols for formatting. On the other hand, XML has a more complex syntax that requires specific opening and closing tags to define elements and attributes.
Purpose: Markdown is primarily intended for document formatting and simple content presentation. It focuses on readability and ease of use, making it suitable for creating blog posts, documentation, and other similar content. XML, on the other hand, is designed for storing and transmitting structured data. Its hierarchical format allows for more flexibility in representing complex data structures and metadata.
Flexibility: Markdown provides limited flexibility compared to XML. It has a predefined set of formatting options for headings, lists, images, links, and basic text formatting. XML, however, allows for unlimited customization with user-defined tags and attributes. This makes XML more suitable for representing diverse data structures and supporting specific application requirements.
Validation and Standards: Markdown does not have any standard validation mechanisms or strict rules for adherence. It is mainly an informal syntax specification, which means that interpretation may vary across different Markdown implementations. XML, on the other hand, has a defined structure defined by DTD or XML Schema. This allows for stricter data validation and adherence to specific standards.
Extensibility: Markdown is not easily extensible and does not provide a standardized way to add custom elements or functionality. XML, on the other hand, supports extensibility through the use of namespaces and can be extended with additional elements, attributes, and even custom document types.
Tooling and Ecosystem: Markdown has a minimalistic tooling ecosystem, with direct support in many text editors, content management systems, and blogging platforms. This makes it easy to use and integrate into existing workflows. XML, on the other hand, has a more extensive tooling ecosystem, with a wide range of libraries, parsers, and editor plugins available for handling XML data.

Markdown vs XML

Overview