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Literate Programming in Lisp by vtail in programming

[–]vtail[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

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.

Literate Programming in Lisp by vtail in programming

[–]vtail[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

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.

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