Some journals will publish a separate file in XML, specially if they are open access. As for why PDFs, I think the answers are:
1. P (portable): you can access it offline, store it locally and annotate (something that researchers do extensively for key articles)
2. design: despite all possibilities with html, including html5, flex, interactive graphics and apps, pdf still allows you to have a much more granular control over design, and looks matter
3. tradition - old habits die hard
Specifically in relation to markdown, although some of its flavors are semantic, and that it also allows for absolutely awesome things such as R markdown (Rmd), tagging specific article sections is still complicated and cumbersome. Including div tags inside markdown has a number of issues. This is all to say that although there is a lot of people writing articles in Rmd, it is not an ideal solution.
Sublime for most things, but Atom does have a few nice features: better markdown preview, drop down menu for things like autocompletion and snippets, nicer color syntax overall (same theme looks better on Atom, I think), a single file for all snippets (I personally think it makes it easier to manage). Main problem with Atom is speed, but there were also a few poor choices such as the package installation interface.
Actually, I gave up trying to find the perfect editor a long time ago, and now just use different ones for whatever they might do better: emacs for org-mode and ESS, vim for editing on servers, sublime 2 for a few plugins that won't work on 3, but sublime 3 is my home base. That being said, sublime looks like a ghost project, hone update/year is just not enough.
I don't have an iphone and so can't install it, but here is a question: if it's anonymous posting and in a social network, maybe there is a lack of incentive since I don't know who will be following me and I can't be identified. but this is just a guess. what is the closest anonymous social network you're trying to emulate?
btw, when you had your initial idea did you run it by people who resembled your target audience or did you go straight into production mode?
btw, you now have comment that says "never ran just crashed. deleting"
http://ledger-cli.org/ , incredibly flexible, very powerful reports. but only use it if you're willing to really drill down the documentation and discussion group
not sure whether this will come out the wrong way, but for some people programming is a career while for others it is and will likely always be a job.
again, don't get me wrong: the ones who do it as a job might well have other things that they love and that for them would be a dream come true type of career. doesn't mean they lack passion or are not really good at something else, but programming might just not be the thing that they are passionate about
both and access to the Web. the white board because you need a plan, the keyboard because ... it's code, and the web since it's hard to program without looking up sources
I learned R http://goo.gl/RNob on my own for data analysis, and so this is more of a specialty language than a full programming language. With that out of the way, here is what I did:
1. had a series of projects where R was the only way to go, which means I was "forced" to get it to work
2. learned how to ask proper questions to the experts
3. searched for the most appropriate tools to create an environment that worked for me
4. started working with other people who knew the technology and became friends with them
5. after some time, started teaching what I had learned to others - this really forces you to make all concepts crystal clear
create a very lean startup and test as many possibilities as possible, while also taking the time to learn the technologies that might align with your business
I think it primarily comes from networking and the so called tacit knowledge http://goo.gl/SgrM . In the case of conferences, tacit knowledge is displayed in terms of practical experience, tricks or the trade, contacts, tools, and other things that are just written in abstracts or slides
1. P (portable): you can access it offline, store it locally and annotate (something that researchers do extensively for key articles) 2. design: despite all possibilities with html, including html5, flex, interactive graphics and apps, pdf still allows you to have a much more granular control over design, and looks matter 3. tradition - old habits die hard
Specifically in relation to markdown, although some of its flavors are semantic, and that it also allows for absolutely awesome things such as R markdown (Rmd), tagging specific article sections is still complicated and cumbersome. Including div tags inside markdown has a number of issues. This is all to say that although there is a lot of people writing articles in Rmd, it is not an ideal solution.