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

[Eric Merritt <cyberlync@yahoo.com>]

> The only slight variation I had in mind with my
> suggested syntax was: the
> switch is on a line on its own, and of a form
> unlikely to infere with the
> syntax of any programming language or text markup
> language; the syntax of
> the switch permits multiple named 'threads' of text,
> allowing perhaps
> maintenance documentation, the user guide, a
> tutorial, and other types of
> document to be generated from the one source file.

  I agree more or less, I have always liked the
concept of literate programming though I have never
felt comfortable enough with the tools to use it
outside of Sun's Javadoc.

> I suspect, on reflection, that this kind of facility
> lies in the realm of
> macro processors (or maybe some sort of combined
> super-editor APSE), and
> more advanced make/build tools, and not Ada
> compilers as such. It was just a
> thought. Perhaps it's the ancient concept of a
> 'straight text file' that
> really needs to be rethought these days?

I would agree, but the 'straight text file' has so
many pros and so few cons that I do not think it is
going to go away any time soon. 

Now comes the question, is literate programming really
required with Ada? It is already designed to be a very
readable language overall. In fact, in many cases I
tend to feel that only a little comment at a
subprogram header is enough, along with the code
itself, to provide adequate documentation. Now don't
get me wrong in Java or C++ I tend to provide comments
profusely, but that is indicative of syntax problems
in those other languages that Ada just does not seem
to have. 

Now of couse, some type of high level documentation is
always very nice, but I dont see how this could be
incorporated into the source of a language. Even if it
was many programmers eschew design work altogether so
many times this high level documentation does not and
will not exist no matter where it is located.

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