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139 comments
JP Mens

@jschauma curiously, that's never been a problem for me, but I can also dictate a valid tar extraction command before the bomb detonates.

However: ask me whether it's [[url][text]] or [[text][url]] in Org mode (which I've been using to create presentations for several years), and we'll all be blown to kingdon come!

Edit: xkcd.com/1168/

Jan Schaumann

@jpmens tar is no problem, but markdown links is like the args to ln(1) for me: I get it right about 75% of the time without looking it up. :-)

Ayush Agarwal

@jschauma @jpmens maybe reference links would work better? I haven't used inline links in a markdown document ever since I became aware of reference links. It's annoying and ugly to paste a long link in the middle of a paragraph.

blah [foo][bar] blah

[bar]: https://example.com

spec.commonmark.org/0.31.2/#re

Pxl Phile

@ayushnix @jschauma @jpmens did this for a whole API and it really has its advantages ๐Ÿ’ช๐Ÿฝ

Leeloo

@jschauma @jpmens
Do you mean the order of the filenames? If so, an easy way to remember is to imagine you are typing a cp command.

Simon ฯ€ man โš›๏ธ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ฆ

@jschauma @jpmens LOL for ln. I just remember it as "the opposite of what the logical from, to order is" and then after a while I start to think the opposite order is logical and then I'm hosed.

Andi_H

@jpmens @jschauma
You just need to say what you want to do as an angry German:

xtract ze files.
compress ze Files.

Never forgot it since I read that.

/dev/urandom

@Andi_H @jpmens @jschauma iirc these days you don't even need the ze

if you're compressing, a lets tar automatically figure out the format based on the file extension

and if you're decompressing, it will figure out the format by itself

Pxl Phile

@Andi_H @jpmens @jschauma I just learned this the other week ๐Ÿ˜… but too late for me because I learned the flags meaning and that -f needs an additional argument. Took me mere 15 years to memorize

- Extract, verify, zip with file
- Compress, verify, zip with file

Verify no matter what otherwise my mnemonic breaks. I also never use barely anything else without reading the man page ๐Ÿ˜ญ

Andi_H

@ppxl @jpmens @jschauma
Good to know that Iโ€™m not the only one who canโ€™t remember anything ๐Ÿ˜…

Matฤ›j Cepl ๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฟ ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ฆ

@jpmens @jschauma

Not mentioning [URL text] (for Wikipedia) and yes unfortunately also [Link Text|URL] (for Jira).

Henry

@jpmens @jschauma For org-mode, the URL coming first makes sense to me: always think of it as being the important part, followed by optional decoration. Perhaps that's why the markdown doesn't make sense to me.

Mx Verda

@jpmens @jschauma oh my actual fucking god.

One of my coding modules at uni ended with something like โ€œnow compress the file into a tarball and submit on turnitinโ€.

Even following the shitty walkthrough from the instructor with the console line command pre-written, I still struggled so much I nearly cried in that damn workshop ffs.

stefan

@jpmens interesting, for me it's the other way around, I only remember the OrgMode syntax, since in OrgMode syntax the order is like in the html tag: <a href="LINK">TEXT</a>
@jschauma

skaphle

@jpmens @jschauma I always insert and edit links with C-c C-l so I have no idea (and don't need to have). I suppose the link must come first because that's the first query

#emacs #orgmode

Marco Bresciani

@jpmens
Orgmode is way easier to remember, if you know your HTML: a tag has the href field with the url, and inside the tag the text.

< a href ... > text < / a >

So also Orgmode: first the url, then the text.
@jschauma

Ben Meier

@jschauma I use the mnemonic "Squaring [..] the circle (..)" to remember the order.. then I just have to remember whether it's the text or link first ๐Ÿคฆโ€โ™‚๏ธ

Le Monolecte ๐Ÿ˜ท๐Ÿคฌ๐Ÿง :oc:

@benmeier_ @jschauma

Pas mal, comme astuceโ€ฆ mais oui, jโ€™ai aussi ce problรจme dโ€™ordre.

Ne serais-tu pas dyslexique, toi aussi ?

Nartagnan โš

@Monolecte @benmeier_ @jschauma

I remember it because you cannot use ( or ) in an url, so it won't break the structure. But you can use it in the text (and it is more used than [ ])

webhat

@nartagnan @Monolecte @benmeier_ @jschauma you can use parenthesis in a URL, that's valid according to RFC 3986. Some webservers use them to preserve state in a URL, as show below

docs.roxen.com/(en)/roxen/1.3/

charlesesmith

@benmeier_ @jschauma I use the alphabet. Brackets before parentheses because b comes before p.

Mike Fiedler, Code Gardener

@jschauma I use editor shortcuts to help me not make this mistake.

I also noticed this one for VIM users: ryan-schachte.com/notes/vim_li

Le Monolecte ๐Ÿ˜ท๐Ÿคฌ๐Ÿง :oc:

@miketheman @jschauma

Avec #obsidian, on a une assistance ร  la rรฉdaction :โ€ฏรงa mโ€™aide รฉnormรฉment et surtout pour les liens.

Dr. Fortyseven โ—ฃ โ—ฅโ—ฃ โ—ฅ ๐Ÿฅƒ

@jschauma How I remember it: [HERE'S A LINK!](https://my friend forgot to add the url, so here it is.com), like a parenthetical aside after a statement. ๐Ÿ˜…

Le Monolecte ๐Ÿ˜ท๐Ÿคฌ๐Ÿง :oc:

@jschauma

Ah, mais รงa me fait รงa tout le temps !!!

Je me sens moins seule, dโ€™un coup !!

Foucauld โฆ โง–โƒ ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ฆ

@lebout2canap @Monolecte @jschauma I had the problem for a while, but Iโ€™m so addict to Markdown that it is not anymore the caseโ€ฆ Practicing a lot is the best way do it right.

ben

@jschauma text goes on a [page], urls go through (cables)

tuxflo

@sqrt2 @jschauma even on Wifi? ๐Ÿ˜‰

This is a good one, I think it will help me to remember the correct order.

Sageton vรฉloce

@akent @jschauma tellement tout pareil ! J'ai l'impression de retrouver ma vraie famille ร  vous lire.

unusual zone of infecundity
@jschauma <a href="fuck it i give up">we're all adults and understand the intended meaning, right?</a>
ใ‚ชใƒ„ใƒฆใ‚ฐ

@jschauma Yeah I prefer gemtext for that
=> link and the description

xale

@dwnsdp @jschauma yeah, this is my mnemonic as well: [what shows up](what it really is)

catgirl-techsupport:verifiedtrans:

@jschauma@mstdn.social this was explained to me to treat [] as the function call and (link) as the argument. Never messed up since.

MarkAssPandi

@jschauma Not a single picture on Fediverse has exposed me as much as this one

:blobcatlaptop: gravitos :blobcatcomfsip:โ€‹

@jschauma its quite simple really.

how do we treat links?

without markdown, you'd say:

Hey, look at google! (google.com)

so, with markdown, you say:

Hey, look at [google](google.com)

that's it!

Diplo Dino

@jschauma I picked up the mnemonic โ€œcurls for the URLsโ€ and that works well for me!

ofa_jeremy

@jschauma @josh really ought to be the right one as brackets manage a function.

shitpostalotl
@jschauma i just remember that it's the option that makes no sense and i get it right every time
scarfish

@jschauma I legitimately get this right 100% of the time by having remembered that it's the options that makes the least logical sense to me

Maven :neocat_flag_demigirl:

@jschauma itโ€™s [text] (url) because the text is square like a tag or text box

Jerry Sievert

@jschauma I remember them the same way I do port/starboard.

bracket : text
parenthesis : url

port : left
starboard : right

the first letter of each is in the same position - lowest letter, highest letter

Hisham

@jschauma A friend of mine once told me that his magic trick to remember the order was that he came up with a silly song that went "๐ŸŽตMarkdown links are like arrays of functions๐ŸŽต" -- I don't even know the melody but I never forgot those lyrics!

And to remember whether the text of URL goes inside the parentheses, here's a trick of my own: OF COURSE it's the choice that causes problems with Wikipedia links that have disambiguation like en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiss_(

You're welcome!!

Anthony Sorace

@diogomafra @hisham_hm @jschauma @gruber I read that within a day of reading that brackets are before parentheses, alphabetically, so I canโ€™t say which actually did it, but I havenโ€™t forgotten since.

St. Chris

@diogomafra Copying @gruberโ€™s tweet text here partly for anyone who doesnโ€™t want to go over there, but mostly for my own reference:

โ€œMy thinking when I created Markdown is that the [brackets] around the link text look like the rectangle of a hovered-over link rendered in the browser. Make sense?โ€

Karl Baron

@hisham_hm @jschauma Yeah itโ€™s the โ€œwill this actually work with a Wikipedia linkโ€ anxiety that helped me remember the order as well!!

Ray Lee

@jschauma [button](psst, btw itโ€™s this)

๐ŸŽ„ Tony Bark :pawified:

@jschauma I have opposite problem now. Iโ€™m so used to using Markdown in everything that every other markup language fucks me up now, especially BBcode. xD

Jeff

@jschauma I didn't comment on the `ln -s` version of this meme, because I make symlinks often enough that I've got that down (I also have my own makes-sense-to-me way of remembering it).

Links in markdown tho? Fuggeddaboudid. I avoid them. I just write out the URL and figure whoever sees it will figure it out, or if it's something like linear or notion, their backend will do it for me.

Feth

@jschauma There is no spec, use both! (RST FTW)

๐Ÿ‡ฉ๐Ÿ‡ช ใใ‚‰ Woomy (:smug_kura:)

@jschauma@mstdn.social took me a while to learn it's brackets and text first and round braces with url second.

Only learned it by remembering
![...] is for images and that appears first

kechpaja

@jschauma Hey, _my_ custom markdown does [text][url]. I've thought about other options, but none of the two in the image have ever been on the table.

Paul Evans

@jschauma I have similar problems when writing Pod - is it L<text|URL> or L<URL|text>

nigel
then you don't use it enough ;-D
Emily :verified_woem:

@jschauma@mstdn.social i remember this by treating the url as secondary information and secondary information is placed in parentheses

Meu

@jschauma@mstdn.social a clear win for the org mode syntax. It's just [[url][text]].
Or was it [[text][url]]?
Oh crap
โ€‹:blobcatgooglynotlikethis:โ€‹

Der Teilweise

@jschauma I remember it as: You click on what looks like a [button](and link to source follows in parentheses, just like you would explain an abbreviation).

Jason Petersen (he)

@teilweise @jschauma markdown was meant to be readable as-is. Many people put URLs in parentheses after some thing they mention, after, not before. I always thought it was pretty natural.

niconiconi

@jschauma@mstdn.social My mnemonic is, "[] is for citations like [1][2][3] or [source]".

Vincent Friedrich

@jschauma I always remember it that way: Brackets comes before Parenthesis โ†’ B comes before P

Thib

@jschauma Time passes from left to right, the same direction as reading in english.

At first you have a block. Time passes, and it erodes the protruding angles into smooth curly braces.

embix

@jschauma
Basically the reason why I switched to

[description][ref]

[ref]: url

Ken Butler

@jschauma as always with these things: try one of them and see whether it works (if not, try the other one). Rather than stressing out about it.

Karb-ibou โ„๏ธ ๐Ÿ”œ ScotiaCon

@jschauma@mstdn.social

Ironically I remembered that part pretty quickly because it's the way that feels less intuitive to me:

[Text](Url)

Rafael Caricio

@jschauma i just remember that there is a line at the bottom of the clickable text, so add [ ] around it the other one is ( ).

Chris Wu :toucan:

@jschauma every time I take a break from my blog I hit this.

Dataless

@jschauma @podfeet I always think of it as a parenthetical link (by the way if, you want to visit that site, itโ€™s here).

Richard K Niner โžก๏ธ ANE, FE

@jschauma honestly, sometimes I even forget which one goes in the brackets & which one goes in the parentheses

*Adds two more buttons*

Bruno Rocha

@jschauma just think links are functions

[functionname](parameter)

mamg22

@rochacbruno @jschauma This is quite similar to how I remember it. The way I do it is associating it with C++11's lambda syntax, which is `[capture](parameters){fn-body}`, so for markdown my mind kinda goes:

`[capture this text and](pass this link)`

I don't write a lot of C++, but sure that did stick in my mind.

bob

@jschauma the world is "spherical" so the "world wide web" goes in the () is how i remember these days.

Chris Cunningham

@jschauma "square the circle" is how I've always remembered it, though every time I need to think about it I mutter another little prayer regarding the heat and lack of general humidity in the place john gruber goes as a reward

Local

@jschauma me every time! I'm always looking it up somewhere..

Brian MacDonald

@jschauma "I'm in this picture, and I don't like it."

Space Catitude ๐Ÿš€

@jschauma

It's the order that confuses me. Opposite from HTML link tag markup.

realjame

@jschauma so true!!!!!! its like plugging in USB, i somehow always get it wrong first and have to fix it to the right way after seeing that it didn't work

alreadydeadxd

@jschauma I thought I was the only one who couldn't remember.

๐ŸงDaveNull๐Ÿง โ˜ฃ๏ธpResident Evilโ˜ฃ

@jschauma Tgat's or mattermost's channel at $workplace.

Good thing "Edit message" was invented ๐Ÿ˜…

p4bl0p3rn0t

@jschauma so truuuuuuue :)

by the way same with latex :

\href{link}{title}
\href{title}{link} 

one of the of all time

@jschauma@mstdn.social mines

Important stuff usually goes in [...] Meaningless dithering goes in (...)


Does this make sense? No.

Does it work? Usually

fops (plushie arc) (Chaotic Stupid)

@jschauma images are ![alt](src) and i just remember that the square bracket goes together with the exclamation mark like it fits next to it and the link syntax is the same

David Gershman

@jschauma

I run into the same problem with OrgMode under Emacs and TiddlyWiki:

Orgmode: [[URL][Text]]
TiddlyWiki: [[text|URL]]

ferricoxide

@jschauma@mstdn.social

"Markdown is so much easier," they said.

"
WHICH flavor of markdown are you referring to," I replied.

Kevin Marks

@jschauma this is why HTML is easier, as the text is outside the <> bits and other things are inside, whereas markdown has too many syntaxes. How many asterisks do I need for bold again? <b> I can remember. Never mind nesting lists

J. B. Thomson
@jschauma <a href="url">text</a> ๐Ÿ‘๐Ÿป
Gabriel Pettier

@jschauma i remember that it looks like calling a function, with the url as a parameter. A bit weird, but i don't have to think about it anymore.

Oblomov

@jschauma
it's

[text](url) in Markdown, and
`text <url>`_ in RST, but
[url text] in MediaWiki, and
<<url,text>> in AsciiDoc

because yay consistency

Scott Kellum :typetura:

@jschauma How I remember: You donโ€™t have to hold shift to start with, but you need to hold shift for the second part. Itโ€™s easier to write the text without holding shift.

maxfenton

@jschauma ok but for markdown images ๐Ÿฅน

Isa JC

@jschauma Somewhere I read that you can think about it as a function declaration. First function name, then parenthesis with parameters `function_name(params)` -> `[link name](link url)`

ยซlambaliciousยป

@jschauma Oh yeah and the very similar anxiety from

[[url text]] vs [[url|text]] (the first one is Fossil and Mediawiki, the second one is Dokuwiki)

David Crooks ๐Ÿณ๏ธโ€๐ŸŒˆ

@jschauma @lisamelton I now try to remember this as [important thing](this is the link by the way)

St. Chris

@jschauma
Wikipedia: [[target page|link text]]
Jira: [link text|target URL]

As a Wikipedia editor whoโ€™s also a business analyst: argh

Mark

@jschauma Thatโ€™s like me and grep. Which side is the file and which is the pattern? Itโ€™s always the other side. Even when I know itโ€™s always the other side, itโ€™s the other side. God damn it.

Viktor Tokariev ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ฆ

@jschauma in markdown-mode for emacs they have interactive function for this

jesterchen42

@jschauma I've always thought of the (url) part as some kind of function argument - and arguments are behind the function.

And thanks to the other comments here I can finally remember if it's

[text](url)

or

[url](text)

:)

Sean Coates

@jschauma @jsled I know this was a joke (and itโ€™s good) but in case it helps: the way I got this to stick for me is to think of it as a function call where () denotes the url parameter.

Werti :verified:

@jschauma bouba/kiki might be a way to remember:

text is a kiki word --> kiki-brackets
url definetly bouba --> bouba-brackets

Carsten Pfeffer

@jschauma so true, but it helps to imagine that you call a function and pass the url as an argument

federico

@jschauma Why using markdown when AsciiDoc exists...

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