Re: How to improve the readability of ...

[Steve Revilak]

> From: girosenth <girosenth@india.com>

> How to improve the readability of (any) LISP or any highlevel
> functional language to the level of FORTH ?

I am not familiar with forth, but I can respond to the general issue
of improving code readability.


> How does one improve readability so that the code is self-commenting ?

I believe that you need to think of the act of writing a program as an
act of *writing*.

Many writers start with an outline, then a first draft, then many
rounds of revision and editing.  The goal of the first draft is to get
the basic ideas down.  The goal of revision and editing is to polish
the ideas, and to make them easier for the reader to understand.  It's
rare for a first draft to be the final version.

Writing a program is no different.  The first draft is the first
version that runs without crashing :) The editing and revision process
is where you clean things up, improve structure, and so fourth.

You should also read lots of code, to get ideas from other writers.

In short, the writer influences readability much more than the
language that he or she is writing in.

Steve

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