GitHub supports several lightweight markup languages for documentation; the most popular ones (generally, not just at GitHub) are Markdown and reStructuredText. Markdown is sometimes considered easier to use, and is often preferred when the purpose is simply to generate HTML. On the other hand, reStructuredText is more extensible and powerful, with native support (not just embedded HTML) for tables, as well as things like automatic generation of tables of contents.
James Kermode jameskermode
