Jan propses to use conventions like 'xxx' for variable names and "zzz" for emphasis (I think). other lightweight emphasis conventions like _yyy_ or *zzz*
one that springs to mind for me is @Name@, but I don't really mind as long as it's non-ambiguous and doesn't cause parsing headaches.
Would there be any difficulty in permitting _all_ of the common ASCII emphasis styles? For instance, "name" and _name_ could be italic, *name* could be bold, 'name' and @name@ could be hyperlinked bold, or some such. In fact, it wouldn't really matter which style was rendered in what manner - different tools could do it differently if they chose. (Ok, except maybe hyperlinking would have to be defined.) I do see one potential difficulty with the single-quoted 'name' style - the common use of identifiers with a single or double prime on the end. But in practice I think a tool can easily recognise that name' is just a name, and not a name followed by unbounded emphasis. Regards, Malcolm