[Doc-SIG] reserved characters

[Edward Welbourne]

>> - that third '#' is NOT treated specially.
>
> Ack, no!  :)  This is potentially the type of "non-safe" behavior
> I want to avoid..  This leads to people saying::
>
>      x = y*z
>
> in their comments, and then later adding::
>
>      I *like* multiplication

well, the first one `should' be inside some sort of mark-up which will
tell your parser that it's a chunk of python code; which suppresses the
magic meaning of * so this shouldn't present a problem.  Likewise,

> This means that we can no longer say '[a, b, c]' without quotes.

well, hey, a doc-string is text and an interlude of python code (that's
what a [list, of, items] is, right ?) should be quoted (well, marked up
as being a chunk of python code).  [Then again, I tend to put big
parenthetical texts into square brackets rather than curved ones, but
I'm guessing Tony's proposed usage as link-generators will only apply
when there's only one word in the interval ?]  So do we really want to
be able to say it without (some sort of) quoting ?

	Eddy.
--
Language is a set of conventions that evolve by anarchy.  True lovers of
language respect both its conventions and the anarchy from which those
conventions emerge.                               -- Tom Tadfor Little