Re: [Octal-dev] OCTAL and literate programming

[Dave O'Toole]

off-topic warning!!!

>   be then processed further as text data. I.e., if the objective is to
>   mix code and documentation into a single source that can then be
>   processed for either human viewing or machine compilation, an HTML
>   or similar format, though perhaps deficient at the moment in certain
>   LaTeX refinements, will have a greater, immediate use.  E.g., a new

Hmm. If we're going to do HTML, we might as well just do plain text
comments; HTML is next to useless as a source document format. It can't
do mathematics, and can't embed compact portable vector illustrations in
the source text like LaTeX. Given that you can always produce HTML pages
from LaTeX document source, I don't see what limitations would be placed
on putting the code online. The Linux HOWTO's are written in SGML if I
remember correctly, from which they make HTML, text, and LaTeX. 

>   method/program as added to OCTAL (of which, including Linux, I am
>   almost entirely ignorant); I log into the OCTAL web site and select
>   the web page detailing that new code and documentation; I like the
>   new method and save that HTML page to my OCTAL source directory.  I
>   then use a literate-programming tool to compile directly from the
>   HTML source.

Or click a link to download the directly-compilable C source (from which
the HTML was generated), in which case you don't also have to have the
litprog tool. Having code webpages would make the code accessible to web
browsers, but unless you have the WEAVE tool at home you can't
compile---which makes it less accessible again. 

Then, if you feel like it, you can run the litprog tool on the .c file
and get some LaTeX. Then if you print it out, it looks **very** nice,
which is more than I can say about printed HTML files :-(

I dunno, just a thought. 

-- 
@@@ david o'toole
@@@ address@hidden
@@@ www.gnu.org/software/octal