John Gruber remarked that image syntax was his biggest mistake with Markdown, and mentioned an alternative:
My best idea for good Markdown img syntax would be to just paste in a URL ending in .jpg/.png/.gif etc.
We liked the idea:
http://example.com/minard.jpg (Napoleon’s disastrous Russian campaign of 1812)
Flowchart.png "Engineering Flowchart"
At the time, we were also looking for a syntax for file transclusion. The same idea applied equally well to other file types:
Savings Account.csv 'Recent Transactions'
Example.swift
Lorem Ipsum.txt
CSV files are embedded as tables, source code files become code blocks, and embedded text files help writers structure their work:
| Debit | Credit |
|:--|:--|
| 0 | 0 |
[Recent Transactions]
```swift
print("Hello World!")
```
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.
We decided to call this syntax “Content Blocks”.