While I do agree with the author's overall point, I think that he inadvertently stumbles on the probable reason here:
> If I want to see the original Markdown syntax, I should be able to switch to that view just as easily.
This doesn't really map well to existing document opening conventions, so the author's hypothetical built-in Markdown viewer/editor doesn't really fit into any existing system app. For example, if Apple modified TextEdit.app to open Markdown files in the same way it handles RTF documents, it would cover the formatted display case, but not editing the source. They would have to add some third mode (or build an entirely separate app) to handle switching between Markdown source and formatted views, deal with displaying malformed syntax, etc. Not to mention handling the various differences between Markdown flavors.
FreakyT•34m ago
> If I want to see the original Markdown syntax, I should be able to switch to that view just as easily.
This doesn't really map well to existing document opening conventions, so the author's hypothetical built-in Markdown viewer/editor doesn't really fit into any existing system app. For example, if Apple modified TextEdit.app to open Markdown files in the same way it handles RTF documents, it would cover the formatted display case, but not editing the source. They would have to add some third mode (or build an entirely separate app) to handle switching between Markdown source and formatted views, deal with displaying malformed syntax, etc. Not to mention handling the various differences between Markdown flavors.