Knuth’s is the only literate programming system that emphasizes type setting. That’s because he designed Tex and wrote thousands of pages with it. It’s his local optimum.
All the others use markdown, html, eMacs org, etc.
When I wrote OP I was thinking of html rendering as just another form of typesetting. Basically any method of reading something at a different place than your text editor. So markdown it itself is fine, but if you generate html from it and read that, that's "typesetting" that is taking you away from the tactile experience of working with code.
All the others use markdown, html, eMacs org, etc.