[Doc-SIG] Not escaping the escape leaves no escape ;)

[Tony J Ibbs (Tibs)]

> Then it's a documentation problem, because the quickref tells
> us otherwise.

Oh, quite likely - the quickref is being written by me, and in its
writing I have discovered at least one fundamental misconception of a
LARGE kind that I had about reST (and a stupid one at that) - I wouldn't
be at all surprised if there were small things around the edge. David's
document is the final reference, for all of that.

Anyhoo, I personally won't entirely trust the quick ref until I can run
the left hand side of each table through DPS/reST and generate
(something sufficiently close to) the right hand side...

<<you-gets-what-you-pays-for-and-you-takes-your-choice'ly>>

<fx:looks again>

Hmm. Where is the (current version of) the quick reference broken on
this? Version 0.4 now says that::

    \*escape* \'with' "\\"

will produce something like::

    *escape* 'with' "\"

which matches what David said (indeed, it's his suggestion). This is a
better example than before because it suggests *so* much more lurking
behind the scenery to be understood... (i.e., if one doesn't understand
it, one has to think about it).

It's only rule 7 I worry about - in the context of the quickref it needs
rewriting, because it doesn't say enough - for instance, one can do::

    ``This is a \ and it doesn't need escaping``

which isn't clear therein. What rule 7 is addressing, I think, is::

    ``We have a backslash at the end\``

and that's confusing to me (David - rule 7 could do with a *little* more
exposition in the spec, to make clear what is going on for us people
with a head cold). But then I find r"" strings confusing too, when they
(don't) have a backslash at the end.

Tibs

--
Tony J Ibbs (Tibs)      http://www.tibsnjoan.co.uk/
"How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive
continuity of ducks." - Dorothy L. Sayers, "Gaudy Night"
My views! Mine! Mine! (Unless Laser-Scan ask nicely to borrow them.)