In PR #2592 @Carreau has come up with a syntax for referencing Python variables in Markdown cells. It uses the Jinja style {{x}} syntax. We love this idea, but there are some things that have to be worked out:

• What syntax do we use? Are we happy with the {{}}
• How do we make sure we are processing Markdown in a robust and sane way for latex and literate stuff. We are slowly diverging away from pure Markdown and that is really dangerous. We want the notebook format to work very broadly and having our own Markdown syntax seems like a bad idea.
• How to handle errors, i.e., undefined variables.
• What do we want to do about other display formats. Seems like a dangerous path to start to allow non-text formats.