docstrings

[Laura Creighton]

Where is the most up to date documentation for how to use them, with 
all the conventions, all the itty bits that most people don't use
and you don't really have to,  and every sort of other really precise
stuff?  We don't want to invent something if there is already a
convention, even if it is not that well known. Common-Practice
but-not-a-real-standard yet counts here as well. Gratuituous 
non-conformity is vile.

Laura