One thought is that obsidian can execute web assembly and a parser / sema checker written in something that turns into wasm can therefore be run on the source files. Can probably tie that to a syntax highlighter style thing for in-ide feedback.

The other is that markdown is a tempting format for literate programming. I do have some notes in obsidian that are fed to cmark to product html. With some conventions, splitting a literate program into executable code embedded in a html document is probably doable as an XML pipeline.

In a much simpler vein, I'm experimenting with machine configuration from within obsidian. The local DNS server sets itself up using a markdown file so editing an IP or adding a new machine can be done by changing that markdown.

I hope the author continues down this path and writes more about the experience.

that being said, the thing i haven’t been able to convince myself of yet is why these are different to just normal (in-line) functions? as in, why should i have to write [[foo]]: would it not be better to have all identifiers automatically linked?

What are the projects you're especially bullish on?