Markdown Won the 50-Year Format War
Remember troff? nroff? LaTeX? WordPerfect? I've lived through them all. The <dot> commands of troff, the \begin{document} rituals of LaTeX, the [UND]underlined[und] madness of WordPerfect. We've been wrestling with text formatting since computers learned to display more than green monospace.
Each system promised elegance but delivered complexity. Each claimed to be the solution but became part of the problem.
Then came Markdown.
The 50-Year Journey to Simplicity
The Dark Ages: App-Specific Syntax Hell
Remember trying to remember whether this week's word processor used .UL or [BOLD] or \textbf or ** for bold text?
- troff/nroff:
<dot>commands that only worked in Unix - LaTeX: Powerful but required a PhD in typesetting
- WordPerfect: Reveal codes that looked like alien hieroglyphics
- Microsoft Word: Binary formats that corrupted if you looked at them wrong
We had plain text files, but we still had to learn bizarre application-specific syntaxes to do anything useful with them.
The Breakthrough: Markdown's Elegant Compromise
Markdown finally understood the fundamental truth: humans should be able to read the source code.
# This is a heading **This is bold** and *this is italic* - This is a list
The genius isn't what Markdown can do - it's what it doesn't do. No complex macros, no hidden formatting codes, no proprietary binary formats.
Why Markdown Won the Format Wars
Universal Applicability
Markdown works everywhere:
- GitHub READMEs
- Slack messages
- Blog platforms
- Documentation systems
- And yes, even AI training data
Zero Lock-In
Your Markdown files will work:
- In Obsidian today
- In whatever replaces Obsidian tomorrow
- In text editors from 1995
- In AI systems from 2035
Human First, Machine Second
The breakthrough was designing a format that humans can read without special tools. You don't need WordPerfect's "reveal codes" or LaTeX's compilation step. The source IS the readable version.
The Smithy: Built on 50 Years of Lessons Learned
My knowledge system, The Smithy, stands on the shoulders of all those failed formatting systems. It learns from their mistakes:
- No proprietary syntax like troff's
<dot>commands - No compilation step like LaTeX's endless error messages
- No hidden formatting like WordPerfect's reveal codes
- No vendor lock-in like Microsoft's .doc format
Just clean, portable, future-proof Markdown.
The AI Revolution Needs Ancient Wisdom
As we build AI systems, we're making the same mistakes all over again. Proprietary formats, walled gardens, vendor lock-in.
The Smithy approach applies the lessons we should have learned from troff, LaTeX, and WordPerfect: build on open standards that outlast companies and technologies.
When I train AI assistants on Zelih Oakes project data, I'm not using some proprietary "AI training format" that will be obsolete in two years. I'm using the same Markdown files that will still work in twenty years.
The Craftsman's Text Philosophy
After 40 years in software, I've learned that the most sophisticated solutions are often the simplest ones. Markdown represents that ideal: power through simplicity, longevity through openness.
The tools in The Smithy reflect this:
migrate-project.sh- works with any system that understands files- Plain Markdown conversations - the universal currency of ideas
- Obsidian's file-based organization - no proprietary databases
Your Turn to Learn from History
You don't need the latest "AI knowledge platform" that will be acquired and shut down in 18 months. You need:
- Markdown - the format that finally got text right
- File systems - the organization method that outlasts applications
- Plain text - the language every computer understands
- Open standards - the antidote to vendor lock-in
The result? Knowledge systems that work today and will still work when today's AI companies are nostalgic memories.
We spent 50 years learning how to format text. Markdown was worth the wait.
Building systems that actually last? Visit codesmith.co to see craftsmanship applied to the modern AI landscape.