> It should be readable, as a complete document, in its existing text form without any transformation.
Is this _needed_, or is this nice to have?
A markup language annotates text and describes _how it should be rendered_. It feels redundant to describe how a document should be rendered (presumable for final consumption) _and_ have the document be readable as-is.
Case in point: I'd argue that HTML is a great markup language. I wouldn't call it the most readable in its current form.
I agree with the spirit here, but it ultimately feels more "nice to have" than truly required.
Very much disagree. Think about Markdown readmes. It's great, and very useful, that when looking through a git repo that I can just look at the readme in a shell or text editor, and also as important, diffs when changing a markdown file are a lot cleaner/easier to understand. Simultaneously, it's also great that I get a nice formatted readme page when I'm browsing a GitHub repo, for example.
As the sibling commenter said, if all you care about is the output why wouldn't you just write it in Word?
Is this _needed_, or is this nice to have?
A markup language annotates text and describes _how it should be rendered_. It feels redundant to describe how a document should be rendered (presumable for final consumption) _and_ have the document be readable as-is.
Case in point: I'd argue that HTML is a great markup language. I wouldn't call it the most readable in its current form.
I agree with the spirit here, but it ultimately feels more "nice to have" than truly required.