Docs about block comments, Emacsisms

[Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso]

In the #octave channel, we just had Andreas Weber
<address@hidden> attempt to email this:

> http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/FAQ.html
>
> says:"Block comments: Matlab recently included the possibility to
> have block comments. With the "%{" and "%}" markers. Octave doesn't
> yet have block comments, but might in the future."
>
> but
>
> http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/doc/interpreter/Block-Comments.html#Block-Comments
>
> says. "Entire blocks of code can be commented by enclosing the code
> between matching ‘#{’ and ‘#}’ or ‘%{’ and ‘%}’ markers."
>
> which works here with octave 3.3.54+ (the comment start and end have
> to be on a single, separate line. For example
>
> #{ this is a comment
>    until here #}
> works not)
>
> Second issue:
> http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/doc/interpreter/Cursor-Motion.html#Cursor-Motion
>
> says:
> <DEL>
>     Delete the character to the left of the cursor.
> C-d
>     Delete the character underneath the cursor.
>
> I think the first should be <BACKSPACE>. Anyway <DEL> deletes the
> character underneath the cursor...

but the mailing list seems to have rejected his email with the
following message:

     RCPT TO <address@hidden> failed: must be
     authenticated

However, he seems to be subscribed to the mailing list.

At any rate, he raises a couple of interesting points.

1) What is the state of block comments? I see that the FAQ has been
updated, but only seems to refer to one style of block comments, with
%{ %} and not with #{ #}. Do they work like they do in Matlab now?

2) What should we do about Emacsisms in the manual? <DEL> is how Emacs
and GNU documentation refers to the backspace key, but this may be
obscure to people who aren't familiar with the overall GNU system. As
far as I can tell, the notation for keybindings isn't explained in the
Octave manual itself. I only recall this from the Emacs manual.

Thanks,
- Jordi G. H.