I'd say so, although I'd use the term advanced user / power user instead of nerd, as I feel the interpretation is less contextual.
My personal observations on why that could be the case:
- Markdown has a very technical origin - I really only saw it gain adoption with GitHub (please excuse if that was only my perception and it gained the popularity elsewhere). So far, it hasn't spread too far into the non-technical world.
- The average end-user prefers a WYSIWYG style. Yes, some markdown editors are rich editors with WYSIWYG controls, but then you could argue the user is not really writing markdown.
- The way markdown is defined, it works really well with mono-spaced fonts. Again, great for technical content (e.g. code), not so great for lengthy paragraphs.
- I am always surprised with how many people are using the visual WYSIWYG buttons to make a word appear in bold vs. how many use CMD/CTRL + B, in spite of writing quite a lot. Common users may not spend the time to learn the code?
It depends on the nerd I guess. A lot of nerds I know are die hard Plain Text fans. I've used it on a wiki or two, but have little use for it otherwise.
I've seen many people doing this even being far IT, science, collectibles or anything else nerdy. They mostly go Evernote though - because it is the most well-known. One day you just get overwhelmed with everything and start feeling like you absolutely have to organize all that chaos. Good note-takng suiting your needs can also feel helpful if you have even mild OCD or ADHD.
Everyone has mental structures for knowledge, this is just an extension. And I don’t want to think about sorts of questions like “who owns Notion today?”
Not just Obsidian. I use the same directory of MD files for Obsidian, Zettlr and Typora. I've even configured the first 2 to auto-name new notes using the same custom date/time-based pattern. You can then use Jekyll (the GitHub pages engine) to publish/update specifically tagged/located notes to your blog or use PanDoc to convert them into an ePub for reading on a handheld device. Needless to say you can also use whatever a tool or programming language to do batch operations on the texts.
And by the way the Obsidian has just released an [optional to use] mobile app which makes keeping notes in it even more useful.
Non-nerds just rarely know about it (I see no reason to avoid using it otherwise). I've advised a non-tech gurl to use Typora instead of Word for her study notes and she's been using it ever since very happily. Sadly you can't even download Typora without the browser warning that's weird ("unusual for people to download") and you probably shouldn't. I use and recommend Typora (of all the other Markdown-aware editors) because besides having all the handy features it also is visually beautiful - this is a good inspiration and concentration buff.
12 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 40.4 ms ] threadMy personal observations on why that could be the case: - Markdown has a very technical origin - I really only saw it gain adoption with GitHub (please excuse if that was only my perception and it gained the popularity elsewhere). So far, it hasn't spread too far into the non-technical world. - The average end-user prefers a WYSIWYG style. Yes, some markdown editors are rich editors with WYSIWYG controls, but then you could argue the user is not really writing markdown. - The way markdown is defined, it works really well with mono-spaced fonts. Again, great for technical content (e.g. code), not so great for lengthy paragraphs. - I am always surprised with how many people are using the visual WYSIWYG buttons to make a word appear in bold vs. how many use CMD/CTRL + B, in spite of writing quite a lot. Common users may not spend the time to learn the code?
[0] https://hackernoon.com/say-yes-to-markdown-no-to-ms-word-be4...
And by the way the Obsidian has just released an [optional to use] mobile app which makes keeping notes in it even more useful.