--- title: Markdown (Aaron Swartz: The Weblog) | daily.dev description: Aaron swartz announces the creation of markdown, a lightweight markup language developed with John gruber to make writing web content as easy as writing email.... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/markdown-aaron-swartz-the-weblog--ds2vgoaxp twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Markdown (Aaron Swartz: The Weblog) | daily.dev og:description: Aaron swartz announces the creation of markdown, a lightweight markup language developed with John gruber to make writing web content as easy as writing email.... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/markdown-aaron-swartz-the-weblog--ds2vgoaxp og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/DS2VGOaXP.png og:image:alt: Markdown (Aaron Swartz: The Weblog) og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Markdown (Aaron Swartz: The Weblog) **[Lobsters](https://daily.dev/sources/lobsters)** · 14 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Aaron swartz announces the creation of markdown, a lightweight markup language developed with John gruber to make writing web content as easy as writing email. The post describes the goal of converting plain text with email-like syntax into HTML automatically, and also mentions a reverse tool (html2text) that converts HTML back to markdown. Both tools are released as free software under the GNU GPL. The comments section features a lively debate comparing markdown to reStructuredText and textile, with John gruber himself weighing in on why he chose to create a new format rather than extend existing ones. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [How Markdown took over the world](https://daily.dev/posts/how-markdown-took-over-the-world-vnzl3v3f5) · Hacker News · 2 upvotes · 0 comments - [Why the heck are we still using Markdown??](https://daily.dev/posts/why-the-heck-are-we-still-using-markdown--mud109xly) · Hacker News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Twenty years of Markdown hindsight, in one markup language: Carve – DerEuroMark](https://daily.dev/posts/twenty-years-of-markdown-hindsight-in-one-markup-language-carve-dereuromark-dlkda0ys5) · DerEuroMark · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#markdown](https://daily.dev/tags/markdown), [#perl](https://daily.dev/tags/perl) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/markdown-aaron-swartz-the-weblog--ds2vgoaxp) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Markdown (Aaron Swartz: The Weblog)","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/markdown-aaron-swartz-the-weblog--ds2vgoaxp","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/markdown-aaron-swartz-the-weblog--ds2vgoaxp"},"datePublished":"2026-04-22T23:01:42.167Z","dateModified":"2026-04-22T23:02:09.800Z","description":"Aaron swartz announces the creation of markdown, a lightweight markup language developed with John gruber to make writing web content as easy as writing email....","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--1KxV4ohY--/f_auto/v1722860400/public/Placeholder%2007","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--1KxV4ohY--/f_auto/v1722860400/public/Placeholder%2007","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Lobsters","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Lobsters","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--tl8v_Fku--/f_auto,t_logo/v1698841318/logos/lobste.jpg","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/lobsters"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/markdown-aaron-swartz-the-weblog--ds2vgoaxp","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"markdown,perl","timeRequired":"PT14M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Lobsters","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/lobsters"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Markdown (Aaron Swartz: The Weblog)"}]} ```