Explaining why Markdown

    Because any particular user can only have one fork of a repository,

    but instructors frequently need to work on several workshops at once.

*   *Why use Pandoc?  Why not some other markup language and some other converter?*

*   *Why use Markdown?*

    1.  It is simpler, and easier to write, than HTML or LaTeX.

    2.  It is a lowest common denominator: anything that can be expressed in Markdown can easily be translated into richer formats.

    3.  It is used by a much wider variety of people than other text markup formats like reStructured Text (reST).

*   *Why use Pandoc?  Why not some other converter?*

    Because it supports a richer dialect of Markdown than Jekyll

    (the converter that GitHub uses by default).

    In particular, Pandoc can do tables and allows us to add styles to headings.

    In particular, Pandoc allows us to add styles to headings

    and lets us specify languages for code blocks without having to wrap them in `div` tags.

*   *What do the [labels](https://github.com/swcarpentry/lesson-template/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue) mean?*