Using HTML instead of Markdown with AI

This post on X from Thariq has been making the rounds. The idea is that HTML is a better format than Markdown for AI.

I've been creating a lot of single page applications (SPAs) similar to Simon Willison's Tools page but it hadn't occurred to me to use HTML as an output format. Here are the basic arguments Tariq makes:

1. Markdown is becoming limiting

2. HTML has richer information density

3. HTML improves readability

4. It's easy to share HTML

5. Use cases span the SDLC

There are a few downsides though:

• HTML uses more tokens

• HTML takes longer to generate

• HTML is worse for diffs

I'll have to give this a try to see how it works.