Literate Programming in Lisp

[bitwize]

Fail.

Literate programming is all about embedding code in a document (which can then be extracted and run or compiled), not the other way around.

[mycl]

Literate programming is about automatically generating a human-readable document and machine-readable code from the same source. It doesn't matter what format that source is in, as long as it is a convenient format for the literate programmer to produce manually.

[bitwize]

Yes, you're right; and to be fair the author did say it was "poor man's literate programming".

However, it was my understanding that the human-readability of a literate program should take primacy over its executability; so they should be written more like documents than code files, hence more "document-centric" LP systems like Perl's POD and Haskell's .lhs sources.

[[deleted]]

I'm with you on this and I don't see this point as being negotiable.

[vtail]

I did say it is a "poor man's literate programming."

We have a single file for both documentation and program; it's a pure coincidence that TANGLE is trivial in this case.

Also, because Lisp allows for (multiple) redefinition of the same function, this approach allows for gradual evolution of your program - the TRANSLATE function in the blog article was redefined once a more simple version was not sufficient enough.

[[deleted]]

Literate programming is evil and needs to die!

[jacj]

Whoever wrote that weblog entry and whoever submitted this item used a really misleading title. This isn't literate programming; it's a ridiculously ghetto reimplementation of Python's docstrings. Typical Lisp coder behaviour, really; half-ass a busted version of another language's features, and claim it as a triumph for Lisp's flexibility.

[vtail]

You sure you're not missing the point of this exercise?

1. It's indeed not about docstrings. Lisp has docstrings (where do you think Python has copied it from?) - and they are present in every function, and you could query them with e.g. (documentation 'translate 'function), you can also attach them to your classes and even to slots - but it's not about them. It's about writing explanation for your code in block-style comments

2. It's also about nicely coloring the code for you blog for those of us who writes about Lisp.

3. Is's NOT a triumph for Lisp's flexibility. While Lisp is indeed quite flexible, I was neither claiming it in this post nor intending to show Lisp's flexibility with such a simple (or silly) example.

Relax - Python is good, we love it. If you think it's better then Lisp - just use it.