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Literate programming is much more than just commenting code

justinmeiners.github.io

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Re: Literate programming is much more than just commenting code

#3

Post by nonrandomstring »

This is great stuff. It's how all code and data research should be presented, where the document is the program and you can reproduce it as easily as you can read it. After years of using Pure Data (a visual dataflow) whose unofficial motto was "The diagram is the program" I got this philosophy stuck deep in my brain. Today I use Org-Mode (In Emacs) for tangling (with something called Babel) that can run source code from many languages as part of an active document.

Re: Literate programming is much more than just commenting code

#4

Post by michaelrpeskin »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #3

This is great stuff. It's how all code and data research should be presented, where the document is the program and you can reproduce it as easily as you can read it. After years of using Pure Data (a visual dataflow) whose unofficial motto was "The diagram is the program" I got this philosophy stuck deep in my brain. Today I use Org-Mode (In Emacs) for tangling (with something called Babel) that can run source code…

I remember my first day of advanced computer graphics (25 years ago, so advanced then wasn’t advanced now) the whole class was shocked when the professor did his dramatic start of class saying “you should never document your code!”…dramatic pause…”you should code your document”.

I still think of that today when I’m writing complex algorithms. I write everything first in prose. Then translate that to a more list like structure. And then I fill in the code around that.

Works really well when I have to come back months later and figure out what I was thinking.

Re: Literate programming is much more than just commenting code

#5

Post by dwohnitmok »

Are there any large (> 5 people teams) projects written with literate programming?

Also are there any IDE plugins or error stack trace/debuggers for literate programming?

I haven't really paid attention to literate programming in a long long time and I'm curious if the field has advanced.

(Also I don't understand this: "A typical literate file produces many source files." Why? Why would you care about having multiple source files? Isn't the literate file the source at this point?)

Re: Literate programming is much more than just commenting code

#6

Post by k__ »

dwohnitmok wrote: post #5

Are there any large (> 5 people teams) projects written with literate programming? Also are there any IDE plugins or error stack trace/debuggers for literate programming? I haven't really paid attention to literate programming in a long long time and I'm curious if the field has advanced. (Also I don't understand this: "A typical literate file produces many source files." Why? Why would you care about having multiple…

"Also are there any IDE plugins or error stack trace/debuggers for literate programming?"

Good question!

I always think it would be nice to just write Markdown sprinkled with code, but without IDE/editor support, it's dead in the water :(

Re: Literate programming is much more than just commenting code

#7

Post by QuikAccount »

I like literate programming in theory but the most common response I see to it is that writing self documenting code is better because as you are working on a code base with many people, it is unlikely they will keep your prose up to date as the code is changed.

Re: Literate programming is much more than just commenting code

#8

Post by Yaina »

k__ wrote: post #6
dwohnitmok wrote: post #5

Are there any large (> 5 people teams) projects written with literate programming? Also are there any IDE plugins or error stack trace/debuggers for literate programming? I haven't really paid attention to literate programming in a long long time and I'm curious if the field has advanced. (Also I don't understand this: "A typical literate file produces many source files." Why? Why would you care about having multiple…

"Also are there any IDE plugins or error stack trace/debuggers for literate programming?" Good question! I always think it would be nice to just write Markdown sprinkled with code, but without IDE/editor support, it's dead in the water :(

I mean rust supports markdown comments and can compile them into documentation.[1] That's pretty good in my book in terms of documentation.

[1]https://doc.rust-lang.org/rust-by-example/meta/doc.html

Re: Literate programming is much more than just commenting code

#9

Post by something98 »

copperx wrote: post #2

It would be great if IDEs supported literate programming; the tangle/weave commands, simple as they are, create many possible points for navigation. An IDE would be ideal to go back and forth from the prose to the code.

I found this years ago: http://leoeditor.com/

Re: Literate programming is much more than just commenting code

#10

Post by k__ »

Yaina wrote: post #8
k__ wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Also are there any IDE plugins or error stack trace/debuggers for literate programming?" Good question! I always think it would be nice to just write Markdown sprinkled with code, but without IDE/editor support, it's dead in the water :(

I mean rust supports markdown comments and can compile them into documentation.[1] That's pretty good in my book in terms of documentation. [1] https://doc.rust-lang.org/rust-by-example/meta/doc.html

I wouldn't call it good. But better than nothing, I guess.
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