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.)
The real problem is that you need at least three forms of hyperlinked markup: eg, what should @ForeignPtr@ link to - the type constructor, the constructor, or the module? I suppose there's always @...@, |...|, <...>, <<...>>, etc. Would this be too heavyweight: @module M@, @con C@, @class C@, @tycon T@? Perhaps the keywords could be left out when the meaning is non-ambiguous, as is usually the case with variable and function names. Cheers, Simon