From: "Nick Roberts" <Nick.Roberts@dial.pipex.com>
Subject: Re: HTML as GNAT source/Knuth's Web
Date: 1998/02/10
Date: 1998-02-10T00:00:00+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <01bd3364$2c898c80$LocalHost@xhv46.dial.pipex.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: 34DA31D0.820918F4@filnet.fr
Who remembers Don Knuth's 'Web'? This was a wonderful idea (IMHO!), in
which pieces of the source code (of any programming language) of a program
were embedded in a text document (TEX or whatever) which also contained the
documentation for the code.
The trick was that the pieces were named, and other pieces could be
embedded, macro-like, into a piece of code, by name. I tried this idea out
myself, in my youth (many moons ago...), and I liked it. Two special
programs were needed: one to 'spin' the web document into a file suitable
for printing (or browsing or whatever); one to 'tangle' the web document to
produce the source code for compilation.
Knuth coined the deliberately perjorative phrase "literate programming" for
this techinique. Once you got used to it, the results could be very neat!
The best thing about it (and I suppose the worst too) was that it
practically forced you to properly document your program as you wrote it.
In an industry which highly valued the production of good quality software,
this idea would have been a breakthrough. Needless to say, in reality it
never caught on!
--
== Nick Roberts ================================================
== Croydon, UK ===========================
== ================
== Proprietor, ThoughtWing Software ==========
== Independent Software Development Consultant ======
== Nick.Roberts@dial.pipex.com ====
== Voicemail & Fax +44 181-405 1124 ===
== ==
== I live not in myself, but I become ==
=== Portion of that around me; and to me ==
==== High mountains are a feeling, but the hum ==
======= Of human cities torture.
=========== -- Byron [Childe Harold]
next prev parent reply other threads:[~1998-02-10 0:00 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 4+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
[not found] <9802031420.AA16822@nile.gnat.com>
[not found] ` <3.0.3.32.19980204153401.0085a970@mail.4dcomm.com>
1998-02-05 0:00 ` HTML as GNAT source Lionel Draghi
1998-02-10 0:00 ` Nick Roberts [this message]
1998-02-10 0:00 ` HTML as GNAT source/Knuth's Web Samuel Mize
1998-02-11 0:00 ` W. Wesley Groleau x4923
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