Encoding system information into a string should be a last resort. That's why a good type system, where you can encode EscapedString [Char] versus UnescapedStr

Encoding system information into a string should be a last resort. That's why a good type system, where you can encode EscapedString [Char] versus UnescapedString [Char] as strings of different types, where you have to work hard to do a safe-to-unsafe cast, that good type system is vastly better than prepending esc and unesc to variable names, and hoping that you don't mess up. Making commenting easy is like spending a lot on orphanages; good in the short term, but causes problems in the long term. You want to document as much of your intent in code as you can, and Haskell makes that easier than, say, assembler.