Unicode Character 'BULLET' (U+2022)

[kagan]

@instanceofme

support Unicode parsing, which, depending on the tools you use, can be cumbersome (e.g. javascript in the browser)

Let’s compare this statement with this one:

@seantek

Markdown, however, is agnostic to character set: neither Gruber’s original specification nor CommonMark say anything about which character set Markdown content is to be authored in.

I would say, a parser, which chooses not to support unicode, can simply ignore the unicode characters.

I also think it is not wise for a parser not to support unicode. All modern operating systems, libraries etc. support it. I can’t imagine why someone would want to write software that doesn’t support unicode.

Not supporting unicode means excluding all those who write something in any other language then English. I don’t think a spec like this can call itself “standard” or “common” by excluding the majority of text in the world.

@instanceofme

As for the rendering of a list bulleted with • , you can add two spaces at the end of the lines so that it would still get a line break. While I get that it is not what you want, you can get your “output ≥ input” with only a minor inconvenience.

No. This is not a minor inconvinance. This is a major annoyance. One should not force the user to do anything at all just to prevent markdown from messing the text up as I have shown in my original example.

In addition, I agree to the below quote:

@seantek

what you put in is what you get out. It should stay that way.

I see two options to ensure this:

1. Adding U+2022 to the list of list markers
2. Getting rid of the two spaces. See the discussion about line breaks.