Re: Literate Programming [was: A case where ...]

[Georg Bauhaus <sb463ba@l1-hrz.uni-duisburg.de>]

Several things might be interesting to consult here:
ANNA,
Lout (with Ada support, can turn on Lout mode in Ada comments)

How would you deal with the multi-syntax problem that Ada/Non-Ada
switching will entail?

: For the unfamiliar, the essence of 'literate programming' (invented by the
: heroic Prof. Don Knuth) is to combine software documentation, in its own
: suitable markup language (e.g. TeX or DocBook), with the source code itself,
: in the same source file.

Plus the capability to add readability by reordering chunks
of source language code to help the reader, not the compiler
(ex.: body of nested subprograms defined outside the declarative
region of the enclosing subprogram in AdaWEB source, yet not making
it separate, big switches squeezed to one half page or so, that from
a readers point of view may seem similar to a limited PERFORM in COBOL).

A variant of this is found in Booch's Software Components with Ada.

: It would be a splendid opportunity to add a great buzzword to Ada: we could
: say it was a "literate programming language". Gotta help with advocacy!

How would that be advocacy given empirical results of advocating
literate programming? :-)


Georg