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Please read the Hacker News guidelines[0] to see why people write in such a manner[1], good sir[2]! [0] Paul Graham did it [1] And everyone copied it here [2
by lolpep8 12y ago
Please read the Hacker News guidelines[0] to see why people write in such a manner[1], good sir[2]!
[0] Paul Graham did it
[1] And everyone copied it here
[2] It's also way easier than putting the effort to weave these remarks into the text seamlessly
- masklinn 12y agoThis is nothing more (or less) than manual emulation for footnotes, which long predate PG.
- lolpep8 12y agoYou must concede that they are particularly prevalent in this community, and that PG's essays are notorious for their abundance of footnotes. Oh, and they are used as a substitute for the lack of hyperlink markup in HN, which makes them a necessity when linking sources in comments.
- masklinn 12y ago> You must concede that they are particularly prevalent in this community Not particularly so when compared with e.g. mailing lists (those I frequent anyway) and usenet.
- cheald 12y agoIt's also standard Markdown for [links][0][1], which is arguably the lingua franca for nerds on the internet. [0] http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax#link [1] see what I did there