Aaron Swartz, slices of an inbox

Aaron Swartz, 2004, Markdown-Discuss mailing list:

Jelks Cabaniss:

Will there by a way do allow the “implicit link name” syntax to do without the following [] brackets? In other words, like [this] instead of like [this][]?

That was my original idea, but Gruber was concerned it would be too easily tripped, e.g. in:

Condi said, "[The President] loves his job."

Turns out that your idea, like many others, is now implemented everywhere. Thank you for your ideas.

Aaron Swartz, 2006, seeking advice about porting PHP Markdown to Python:

Eek. Everything I try to run this regular expression through goes into some sort of infinite loop:

'/^(?:[^`]+|(`+)(?:[^`]+|(?!\1[^`])`)*?\1(?!`))*$/s'

(it’s the balanced ` matching thing…)

The regular expressions used to implement Markdown would madden anyone. I’m glad I could help.

Aaron Swartz, 2008, finding something wrong with my website:

I think you mean “markdown” not “makrdown”

Oops!

Rest in peace Aaron. We weren’t talking that much, but I’ll miss you.

P.S.: Someone ought to find a way to fix that farce of a justice system.