Which unordered list style to use for markdowns

[blumamir]

It seems the codebase is not consistent with how unordered lists are used in markdown.

Some use dash - like @opentelemetry/api, and other use asterisk * like opentelemetry@context-async-hooks

This came up in open-telemetry/opentelemetry-js-contrib#2196 where a section of "Supported Versions" was introduced in all readmes, and the difference in styling became noticeable by the markdown linter complaining.

I want to align all the markdowns in this repo to use consistent unordered list style, and add it to the ci lint-markdown action to enforce.

Since contrib settled on dash - and most of the packages in this repo uses dash - I want to align everything to dash, and replace where it is asterisk. This is most notably in the CHANGELOG files which uses asterisk at the moment.

options:

• convert everywhere to dash, including the CHANGLELOG
• convert all README.md to dash but keep changelog with asterisk
• keep using mixed style and different style per file.

[pichlermarc]

I usually write dash -, and since most parts of the repo & contrib seem to be using that. So I'm in favor of aligning it to dash. 🙂

[blumamir]

I usually write dash -, and since most parts of the repo & contrib seem to be using that. So I'm in favor of aligning it to dash. 🙂

Thanks @pichlermarc . Do you suggest we do it only for READMEs, or to all markdown files in the codebase? (including CHANGELOG)

[trentm]

Note that the CHANGELOG in the contrib repo is currently generated by release-please which is using *. Not sure if that is changeable.

I'm on team dash, but I'm also not sure how important it is to enforce. I'm easy.

[blumamir]

I'm on team dash, but I'm also not sure how important it is to enforce. I'm easy.

I was trying to aggregate data from the READMEs of multiple instrumentations into single markdown, and then we use mixed style and needs to be corrected. Was thinking that it is better to be aligned upstream instead of modifying tools to correct styling downstream in distributions.

created open-telemetry/opentelemetry-js-contrib#2205 to apply in contrib, and will create one for core as well

[JamieDanielson]

Also team dash generally, but fine with asterisks. I don't feel strongly except to have consistency of using one or the other, so any move in favor of consistency is something I'm on board with 👍