I understand that example is a good use-case for the original intention. But I still think that the code spans should be able to show whitespaces as they’re in the original text. For example currently it’s not possible to insert python in a code span because of the multiple spaces and leading spaces stripping. See this example:
x = 1 if x == 1: # indented four spaces print "x is 1."
Which has this source:
`
x = 1
if x == 1:
# indented four spaces
print "x is 1."
`
I know this is a block, so <pre> tags should be used for it anyways, but I think that the code block feature with the backtick should not change the whitespaces in the string this heavily to be useful for some cases where the newlines and multiple whitspaces are an important part of the text.