Cweb, donald knuths favourite programming language this site also has examples of people using cweb to write literate programs. Literate programming was invented by donald knuth one of the few real geniuses ever to grace computer science as a way of making programs easier to understand. Literate programming paradigm, the central activity of programming becomes that of conveying meaning to other intelligent beings rather than merely convincing the computer to behave in a particular way. Literate programming is a programming methodology that combines a programming language with a documentation language, making programs more robust, more portable, and more easily maintained than programs written only in a highlevel language. The literate programming system that knuth designed did much, much more than immediately meets the eye, namely it overcome many shortcomings in the underlying programming language that the code generation tool generated from knuths source document, namely standard pascal. The code segments are arranged not according to execution order or the logical structure of the. Literate programming is a programming paradigm introduced by donald knuth in which a computer program is given an explanation of its logic in a natural language, such as english, interspersed with snippets of macros and traditional source code, from which compilable source code can be generated the literate programming paradigm, as conceived by knuth. Knuth argued that more emphasis should be placed on explaining to humans what computers are meant to do, rather than simply instructing computers what to do.
The principal objective in this public access knowledgebase is to promote and. In general, literate programs combine source and documentation in a single file, referred to as a web. The idea was that a programmer wrote one document, the web file, that combined documentation with code. It was proposed by donald knuth in 1984 in his article donald knuth. In each case, the primary goal has been to write the program. Knuth computer science department, stanford university, stanford, ca 94305, usa the author and his associates have been experimenting for the past several years with a programming language and documentation system called web. Oct 15, 2002 literate programming is a programming and documentation methodology. He argued that there needed to be a change in the way that programmers view the way they work. Though rarely mentioned, sloppy coding often costs companies a great deal in terms of time and money. Many examples are given, including excerpts from the programs for tex and metafont. For more information on literate programming, the reader is directed to knuths early founding work knuth83 and knuth84. Literate programming is a programming paradigm introduced by donald knuth in which a computer program is given an explanation of its logic in a natural language, such as english, interspersed with snippets of macros and traditional source code, from which compilable source code can be generated.
Wikipedia says the following about literate programming. The idea is to allow you to create great documentation with as constraints or limitations. When you write a computer program, you have to present the code to the computer in a certain order, or else it doesnt work. Literate programming is a programming and documentation methodology. This document contains information relevant to sgmlxml and literate programming and is part of the cover pages resource. Oct 21, 2015 literate programming is an approach to programming introduced by donald knuth in which a program is given as an explanation of the program logic in a natural language, such as english. Donald knuths original paper, where he coined the term literate programming. Literate programming with and for r ross ihaka december, 15, 2011 1 introduction in a 1984 paper 4, donald knuth introduced the concept of literate program ming. Jun 26, 20 donald knuth literate programming 6697 duration.
Knuth is one of the worlds preeminent computer scientists, whose works have had a profound influence on the subject since the publication in 1968. Download skype for your computer, mobile, or tablet to stay in touch with family and friends from anywhere. Computer science department, stanford university, stanford, ca 94305, usa. Literate programming, a concept central to eve, was an idea from this time that never fully gained traction, and remains a largely unexplored yet potentially transformative direction for programming. When i do the latex export to a pdf, i would like the name of the file the code gets tangled to to be displayed by each code block. Extm program, one of his goals was to publish it as a program of which a professor of computer science might be proud, in spite of the fact that it meets real. Donald knuth is the inventor of tex and literate programming, professor emeritus at stanford university, winner of the acm turing award, and author of the art of computer programming.
Download a free cweb distribution for microsoft windows. Knuth in the early 1980s, as a natural sequel to the concept of structured programming that had caused a revolution in the world of software development about a decade earlier. First, there is a need to present a basic description of literate programming and how applica tion of literate programming principles can improve the resulting code. Learn about literate programming using the cweb tool for software development. Knuth computer science department, stanford university, stanford, ca 94305, usa the author and his associates have been experimenting for the past several years with a program ming language and documentation system called web. It is the combination of documentation and source together in a fashion suited for reading by human beings. Jun 06, 2016 donald knuth, who is no small name in computing, proposes a new way of doing things in his literate programming. Pdf this paper presents an intensive programming course, which was. One speculation for the reason behind knuths pushing of lp is that according to stanfords intellectual property policy, stanford would have owned all of knuths code, but not his published writing. I think the issue is treating knuths literate programming examples as received wisdom, or the pinnacle of the form, rather than as a pioneering effort by someone very talented, but done without the benefit of a developed culture around the practice. Literate programming is a programming paradigm introduced by donald knuth in which a computer program is given an explanation of its logic in a natural. Donald knuth introduced literate programming in 1984 as an alternative perspective on the motivation of the programmer. Its central tenet is that documentation is more important than source code and should be the focus of a programmers activity. Some of the tools even support nonlatex formats for composing the documentation in the program, so you dont have to endure that if you dont like latex.
What is literate programming literate programming was created by donald knuth during the development of his tex typesetting system. Literate programming is a methodology that combines a programming language with a documentation language, thereby making programs more robust, more portable, more easily maintained, and arguably more fun to write than programs that are written only in a highlevel language. Back in 1984, donald knuth wrote let us change our traditional attitude to the construction of programs. Jan 23, 2006 literate programming, invented in 1981 by the same donald knuth who wrote the art of computer programming and the document language tex, is a technique in which a program is written as a humanoriented document interspersing discussion and code. One of the things i most like about ordering through amazon is their teamwork with a wonderful group of 3rd party suppliers. Literate programming is a methodology that combines a programming language. Learn to program with literate programming hackaday. I am using lhs2tex for my literate agda files and id like them to be syntax highlighted. But knuth s web and cweb are the only major literate programming tools that i know about that actively typeset the code. This book on literate programming a series of monographs by the author presenting follows in the tradition and do not disappoint the reader who enjoys knuth. Literate programming has nothing to do with tools or style.
For more recent information refer to smith91, which provides a comprehensive bibliography up to 1990. Literate programming department of computer science. Ive been playing with various ways of doing literate programming in python. On the writing side, the main issue is that literate programming tends to tie your writing into the tools that support your literate programming. In doing so, literate programming facilitates the devel. The main idea is to treat a program as a piece of literature, addressed. This contrasts with the traditional view that a programmers primary creation is source code to be read by a computer. Knuths other idea was that the best order to explain the parts of the program in a journal article is not going to be the same as the order that the computer needs to see the code. Literate programming is an approach to programming introduced by donald knuth in which a program is given as an explanation of the program logic in. Some thirty years ago donald knuth, a computer scientist, proposed literate programming as a better way of organizing narrative and code 1984. This anthology of essays from donald knuth, the father of computer science, and the inventor of literate programming includes early essays on related topics such as structured programming, as well as the computer journal article that launched literate programming itself. The system has been used for small and large programs. One of the hard transitions to literate programming is literate thinking.
These include web browsers, email clients, skype clients, and. Literate programming is the writing of computer programs primarily for human beings to read, similar to a work of literature. Contribute to tangentforkscweb development by creating an account on github. Knuth indicated that he chose the name literate programming in part to contrast the name and the idea with structured programming, which was the fashion of the time and which he apparently felt pointed programmers in the completely wrong direction and he was 100% right on this. For more information on literate programming, the reader is directed to knuth s early founding work knuth83 and knuth84. In literate programming the documentation is written within the source les and are separated from the programming code with a special notation. These conclusions were was also supported by bentley and knuth 10. But knuths web and cweb are the only major literate programming tools that i know about that actively typeset the code. This view sees literate programming as another programming tool or another programming style.
Literate programming is a programming paradigm introduced by donald knuth in which a computer program is given an explanation of its logic in a natural language, such as english, interspersed with snippets of macros and traditional source code, from which compilable source code can be generated the literate programming paradigm, as conceived by knuth, represents a move away from writing. Literate programming is also the name of donknuths book isbn 0937073814 which describes the methodology. I believe that the time is ripe for significantly better documentation of programs, and that we can best achieve this by considering programs to be works of literature. In 1984, knuth introduced the idea of literate programming. Jul 07, 2016 i think the issue is treating knuth s literate programming examples as received wisdom, or the pinnacle of the form, rather than as a pioneering effort by someone very talented, but done without the benefit of a developed culture around the practice. Newest literateprogramming questions stack overflow. Mar 20, 2000 literate programming was invented around 1983 by the very famous donald knuth, author of the tex typesetting system and the multivolume series the art of computer programming. Many people make the mistake of thinking that literate programming is just better documentation. Literate programming can be regarded as an essayist, whose main concern is with exposition and excellence of style.
Literate programming with javascript and html ever since i started to work on programming languages and models, i was intrigued by the problem of developer productivity. Always looking for effective ways to write and maintain code over time. Literate programming facilitates this approach by combining code and documentation into a single, unified source document. The literate programming paradigm, as conceived by knuth, represents a move away from writing programs in the manner and order imposed by the computer, and instead enables programmers to develop programs in the order demanded by. Such an environment reverses the notion of including documentation, in the form of comments, within the code, to one where the code is embedded within a programs description. Beautifully typeset your code so one can curl up in bed to read it like a novel. Orgmodes documentation on literate programming, for more examples of things you can do with orgmode. The literate programming paradigm, as conceived by knuth, represents a move away from writing programs in the manner and order imposed by the computer, and instead enables. Literate programming published in computer journal british computer society publication but it was clouded by knuth excessive attention to. Donald knuth, who is no small name in computing, proposes a new way of doing things in his literate programming. I know i can achieve some highlighting via %format instructions but that is a bit too much. I like noweb, but i have two main problems with it. The literate programming paradigm, as conceived by knuth, represents a move away from writing programs in the manner and order imposed by the computer, and instead enables programmers to develop programs in.
In essence, this is the purpose of literate programming lp for short. Rather than writing the code in the order the compiler likes to see it, write the. May 28, 2018 orgmodes documentation on literate programming, for more examples of things you can do with orgmode. This can make collaboration on a document difficult if the people youre collaborating with are not as sold on the tools as you are. The cover pages is a comprehensive webaccessible reference collection supporting the sgmlxml family of meta markup language standards and their application. Order your code for others to read, not for the compiler. Literate programming article about literate programming by. Literate programming, invented in 1981 by the same donald knuth who wrote the art of computer programming and the document language tex, is a technique in which a program is written as a humanoriented document interspersing discussion and code. Extm program, one of his goals was to publish it as a program of which a professor of computer science might be proud, in spite of the fact that it meets realworld constraints and compromises 2, p. One speculation for the reason behind knuth s pushing of lp is that according to stanfords intellectual property policy, stanford would have owned all of knuth s code, but not his published writing. The idea of literate programming is an combination of several ideas including idea of hypertext and the idea of content management applied to program sources. Whats the best way to do literate programming in python. Next, a literate programming software that the special notation is written for parses the string notations to separate the programming. Knuth developed the web system as a working literateprogramming language.
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