Re: CodeDown = Markdown as the universal language for program documentation
Hello. I just must say that I have tried Fletcher Penneys version of multi markdown recently. The 3.x version seems to me to be very suitable for the task of converting to LaTeX, which is slightly more complicated than converting to HTML. I have tried pandoc, but I find it far more easier to work with multimarkdown. You should consider trying it. Tommy Den 11. apr. 2011 kl. 18.17 skrev bucephalus org: Dear Markdown enthusiasts out there! Sure, I don't need to tell you how great an versatile Markdown is for writing standard documents. I think, that it would make a really great universal standard as a programming documentation language, too, and maybe CodeDown would be a good title for this approach. The idea started when I was trying to document some PHP scripts. I need to use different programming languages for different purposes, but I am not a full time programmer. The problem is, that for most of these languages, the standard documentation tools are yet another language on their own, and I already have difficulties remembering the idioms of the programming languages. When I was working on the PHP scripts, I was looking for a standard tool to write some docs, but I was overwhelmed by phpDocumentor. In the past, I often used Perl's POD to write tutorials for some of my programs, and that always did a good job. But a while ago I discovered Markdown, and I found that even more convenient and intuitive. I thought, it would be very easy to use that as the format for literal programming in PHP: by a simple modification of the usual comment delimiters /* ... */ and // in PHP, these comments would become designated blocks for Markdown comments or delimiters for source code parts, that would appear in the documentation. The possibility these literal code blocks is an essential part of Donald Knuth's literal programming concept, and most standard documentation tools are not even capable of realizing that. In a first conversion step, these blocks would turn into Markdown, and in a second conversion step, the Markdown is converted to HTML. phpToMarkdown markdownToHtml PHP source code -- Markdown -- HTML For the markdownToHtml function, I used Michel Fortin's PHP Markdown, so my actual converter is a pretty small script. I called it ElephantMark (see http://www-bucephalus-org.blogspot.com/2011/01/elephantmark.html) and the according script is its own documentation. This approach can be used for any mainstream programming language. My current favorite is Haskell, and I wrote a HaskellDown module, that does similar things for Haskell. The main converter is just a composition of two functions haskellToMarkdown markdownToHtml Haskell source code - Markdown HTML For the markdownToHtml part I used the very powerful Pandoc module, written by John MacFarlane. This week, I'll give a talk about it on a meeting of the Dutch Haskell User Group, and I intend to publish it, as soon as possible. During the preparations for the talk, I thought I should call the whole idea CodeDown, including Php(Code)Down as the CodeDown for PHP, PythonCodeDown as the CodeDown for Python, etc. There could even be a general CodeDown tool, that does the conversion for all these particular languages alltogether. But before I put any more work into this project, I would like to find out, if there is really a general interest or support for this idea. Please, don't spare on your comments, answers or questions. Greetings, Thomas (bucephalus.org) ___ Markdown-Discuss mailing list Markdown-Discuss@six.pairlist.net http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/markdown-discuss Best regards Tommy Bollman -- Mollison's Bureaucracy Hypothesis: If an idea can survive a bureaucratic review and be implemented it wasn't worth doing. ___ Markdown-Discuss mailing list Markdown-Discuss@six.pairlist.net http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/markdown-discuss
Re: CodeDown = Markdown as the universal language for program documentation
On Apr 11, 2011, at 5:46 PM, David Chambers wrote: Check out Jeremy Ashkenas's docco. Truly beautiful. People might also be interested in appledoc, which uses Discount to parse comments. -- Rob McBroom http://www.skurfer.com/ ___ Markdown-Discuss mailing list Markdown-Discuss@six.pairlist.net http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/markdown-discuss
Re: CodeDown = Markdown as the universal language for program documentation
On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 9:04 AM, Rob McBroom mailingli...@skurfer.com wrote: On Apr 11, 2011, at 5:46 PM, David Chambers wrote: Check out Jeremy Ashkenas's docco. Truly beautiful. People might also be interested in appledoc, which uses Discount to parse comments. There is also Apydia [1], which uses Python-Markdown (or textile or reStructuredText) on Python code. However, the really powerful documentation library in Python (also supports C/C++ with other language promised to be coming) is Sphinx [2]. Unfortunately, is uses reStructuredText, not Markdown. Now, if someone created a similar tool that used Markdown, that would be something. The great thing about Sphinx is that while is can extract comments from the source, it is primarily meant to write documentation separate from the source - which should almost always be a projects primary documentation. The automatically-generated-from-source reference should usually be in addition to the primary documentation. At least, that is if you want a well documented project. [1]: http://apydia.ematia.de/index.html [2]: http://sphinx.pocoo.org/ -- \X/ /-\ `/ |_ /-\ |\| Waylan Limberg ___ Markdown-Discuss mailing list Markdown-Discuss@six.pairlist.net http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/markdown-discuss
Re: CodeDown = Markdown as the universal language for program documentation
Hi Bob, hi Waylan, There seems to be no end in good news I definitely need to study all that. Thank you very much! What I like in Markdown, compare to other lightweight-markups and in this context of program documentation, is the two little, but very useful features: backticks around a phrase turn it into code (i.e. `f(n)` turns into codef(n)/code) and the indentation of tabs or four spaces turns a code block into precode.../pre/code. This is probably the most convenient markup for inline and block code, one can imagine. Even more natural than the LaTeX $...$ for inline and $$...$$ for block code. On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 4:52 PM, Waylan Limberg way...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 9:04 AM, Rob McBroom mailingli...@skurfer.com wrote: On Apr 11, 2011, at 5:46 PM, David Chambers wrote: Check out Jeremy Ashkenas's docco. Truly beautiful. People might also be interested in appledoc, which uses Discount to parse comments. There is also Apydia [1], which uses Python-Markdown (or textile or reStructuredText) on Python code. However, the really powerful documentation library in Python (also supports C/C++ with other language promised to be coming) is Sphinx [2]. Unfortunately, is uses reStructuredText, not Markdown. Now, if someone created a similar tool that used Markdown, that would be something. The great thing about Sphinx is that while is can extract comments from the source, it is primarily meant to write documentation separate from the source - which should almost always be a projects primary documentation. The automatically-generated-from-source reference should usually be in addition to the primary documentation. At least, that is if you want a well documented project. [1]: http://apydia.ematia.de/index.html [2]: http://sphinx.pocoo.org/ -- \X/ /-\ `/ |_ /-\ |\| Waylan Limberg ___ Markdown-Discuss mailing list Markdown-Discuss@six.pairlist.net http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/markdown-discuss ___ Markdown-Discuss mailing list Markdown-Discuss@six.pairlist.net http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/markdown-discuss
Re: CodeDown = Markdown as the universal language for program documentation
Interesting concept, but I think you have it partially reversed. You want php - codedown - web I think it would be better: codedown - php codedown - markdown - web One of the weaknesses for most programming is that people postpone writing the documentation. In one of the few programming courses I had, the instructor had us write the user manual first. THEN write the top level description of the program, including documenting the algorithms. ONLY then could we write the program. After we had to correct the previous levels. There is a lot of merit in this for anything that is too complicated to fit into a single file. In addition this approach requires no changes to markdown. Codedown then only has to recognize a different commenting style for whatever language you are using, which I think would make it quick to write. Respectfully, Sherwood of Sherwood's Forests Sherwood Botsford Sherwood's Forests -- http://Sherwoods-Forests.com 780-848-2548 50042 Range Rd 31 Warburg, Alberta T0C 2T0 On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 10:17 AM, bucephalus org bucephalus@gmail.comwrote: Dear Markdown enthusiasts out there! Sure, I don't need to tell you how great an versatile Markdown is for writing standard documents. I think, that it would make a really great universal standard as a programming documentation language, too, and maybe CodeDown would be a good title for this approach. The idea started when I was trying to document some PHP scripts. I need to use different programming languages for different purposes, but I am not a full time programmer. The problem is, that for most of these languages, the standard documentation tools are yet another language on their own, and I already have difficulties remembering the idioms of the programming languages. When I was working on the PHP scripts, I was looking for a standard tool to write some docs, but I was overwhelmed by phpDocumentor. In the past, I often used Perl's POD to write tutorials for some of my programs, and that always did a good job. But a while ago I discovered Markdown, and I found that even more convenient and intuitive. I thought, it would be very easy to use that as the format for literal programming in PHP: by a simple modification of the usual comment delimiters /* ... */ and // in PHP, these comments would become designated blocks for Markdown comments or delimiters for source code parts, that would appear in the documentation. The possibility these literal code blocks is an essential part of Donald Knuth's literal programming concept, and most standard documentation tools are not even capable of realizing that. In a first conversion step, these blocks would turn into Markdown, and in a second conversion step, the Markdown is converted to HTML. phpToMarkdown markdownToHtml PHP source code -- Markdown -- HTML For the markdownToHtml function, I used Michel Fortin's PHP Markdown, so my actual converter is a pretty small script. I called it ElephantMark (see http://www-bucephalus-org.blogspot.com/2011/01/elephantmark.html) and the according script is its own documentation. This approach can be used for any mainstream programming language. My current favorite is Haskell, and I wrote a HaskellDown module, that does similar things for Haskell. The main converter is just a composition of two functions haskellToMarkdown markdownToHtml Haskell source code - Markdown HTML For the markdownToHtml part I used the very powerful Pandoc module, written by John MacFarlane. This week, I'll give a talk about it on a meeting of the Dutch Haskell User Group, and I intend to publish it, as soon as possible. During the preparations for the talk, I thought I should call the whole idea CodeDown, including Php(Code)Down as the CodeDown for PHP, PythonCodeDown as the CodeDown for Python, etc. There could even be a general CodeDown tool, that does the conversion for all these particular languages alltogether. But before I put any more work into this project, I would like to find out, if there is really a general interest or support for this idea. Please, don't spare on your comments, answers or questions. Greetings, Thomas (bucephalus.org) ___ Markdown-Discuss mailing list Markdown-Discuss@six.pairlist.net http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/markdown-discuss ___ Markdown-Discuss mailing list Markdown-Discuss@six.pairlist.net http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/markdown-discuss
Re: CodeDown = Markdown as the universal language for program documentation
Hi Sherwood,
Thank you very much for your interest and reply!
On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 9:05 PM, Sherwood Botsford sgbotsf...@gmail.comwrote:
Interesting concept, but I think you have it partially reversed.
You want php - codedown - web
I think it would be better:
codedown - php
codedown - markdown - web
I am not sure, if I understand what you mean. But I am under the impression,
that maybe you don't understand what the general idea of CodeDown is. There
is not separate code called CodeDown, that could or should be translated
into PHP or Markdown. There is only the source code of a particular given
programming language, say PHP.
Consider the following simple script, called `example.php`, comprising the
following code
?php
/*
tripleThis($n) returns the three-fold of the given number $n.
*/
function tripleThis ($n) {
return 3 * $n;
}
?
This is plain standard PHP, with one comment between /*...*/.
I can run this through my ElephantMark converter, like so
php elephantmark.php example.php
and that returns an empty HTML document, pretty much like this
html
body
/body
/html
You can also run the example.php script itself and use the triple()
function, as usual with PHP!
The thing is, that a little modification of the script (in fact, there are
three simple syntax rules), turns it into a potential self-documentation of
the script. But note, that the script as PHP script is totally unchanged!
For example, by turning the ordinary command /*...*/ into what I called a
Markdown block /*** ... ***/, allows us to apply proper Markdown (as a
super-set of HTML). And putting the function definition between two lines of
// // // makes that part a literal block.
So our modified example.php is now say
?php
/***
# A nice function
`tripleThis($n)` returns the three-fold of the given number `$n`.
Its implementation is as follows:
***/
// // //
function tripleThis ($n) {
return 3 * $n;
}
// // //
?
If we now run the same command
php elephantmark.php example.php
the output will be a HTML document
html
body
h1A nice function/h1
p
codetripleThis($n)/code returns the three-fold of the given number
code$n$/code.
/p
p
Its implementation is as follows:
/p
precodefunction tripleThis($n) {
return 3 * $n;
}
/code/pre
/body
/html
So this is a HTML document generated from the PHP source, which is thus
both, a PHP script and its own documentation.
(I left away the intermediate step, that the script is first translated into
Markdown, and that is then translated into HTML. But the normal user will
not need this intermediate Markdown step.)
One of the weaknesses for most programming is that people postpone writing
the documentation.
In one of the few programming courses I had, the instructor had us write
the user manual first. THEN write the top level description of the program,
including documenting the algorithms. ONLY then could we write the
program. After we had to correct the previous levels.
This is exactly the way I personally use my ElephantMark (or PhpCodeDown)
all the time! Both the PHP program and its HTML documentation can grow
gradually and simultaneously, and both have the same single source file!
There is a lot of merit in this for anything that is too complicated to fit
into a single file.
In addition this approach requires no changes to markdown.
Codedown then only has to recognize a different commenting style for
whatever language you are using, which I think would make it quick to write.
I am not sure again, if I understand this last part. But maybe, it only
makes sense in your interpretation.
Thank you again, Sherwood, for your comment.
I think, for people knowing Markdown, the CodeDown idea is all too simple:
you just need one, two, or three syntax rules concerning the modification of
comments in the original programming language. And just that makes it so
universal and easy.
But maybe, it is so simple, that it is too difficult for me to explain.
Greetings,
Thomas
On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 10:17 AM, bucephalus org bucephalus@gmail.com
wrote:
Dear Markdown enthusiasts out there!
Sure, I don't need to tell you how great an versatile Markdown is for
writing standard documents.
I think, that it would make a really great universal standard as a
programming documentation language, too, and maybe CodeDown would be a
good title for this approach.
The idea started when I was trying to document some PHP scripts. I need to
use different programming languages for different purposes, but I am not a
full time programmer. The problem is, that for most of these languages, the
standard documentation tools are yet another language on their own, and I
already have difficulties remembering the idioms of the programming
languages. When I was working on the PHP scripts, I was looking
Re: CodeDown = Markdown as the universal language for program documentation
Check out Jeremy Ashkenas https://github.com/jashkenas's
doccohttp://jashkenas.github.com/docco/.
Truly beautiful.
David
On 11 April 2011 13:32, bucephalus org bucephalus@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Sherwood,
Thank you very much for your interest and reply!
On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 9:05 PM, Sherwood Botsford
sgbotsf...@gmail.comwrote:
Interesting concept, but I think you have it partially reversed.
You want php - codedown - web
I think it would be better:
codedown - php
codedown - markdown - web
I am not sure, if I understand what you mean. But I am under the
impression, that maybe you don't understand what the general idea of
CodeDown is. There is not separate code called CodeDown, that could or
should be translated into PHP or Markdown. There is only the source code of
a particular given programming language, say PHP.
Consider the following simple script, called `example.php`, comprising the
following code
?php
/*
tripleThis($n) returns the three-fold of the given number $n.
*/
function tripleThis ($n) {
return 3 * $n;
}
?
This is plain standard PHP, with one comment between /*...*/.
I can run this through my ElephantMark converter, like so
php elephantmark.php example.php
and that returns an empty HTML document, pretty much like this
html
body
/body
/html
You can also run the example.php script itself and use the triple()
function, as usual with PHP!
The thing is, that a little modification of the script (in fact, there are
three simple syntax rules), turns it into a potential self-documentation of
the script. But note, that the script as PHP script is totally unchanged!
For example, by turning the ordinary command /*...*/ into what I called a
Markdown block /*** ... ***/, allows us to apply proper Markdown (as a
super-set of HTML). And putting the function definition between two lines of
// // // makes that part a literal block.
So our modified example.php is now say
?php
/***
# A nice function
`tripleThis($n)` returns the three-fold of the given number `$n`.
Its implementation is as follows:
***/
// // //
function tripleThis ($n) {
return 3 * $n;
}
// // //
?
If we now run the same command
php elephantmark.php example.php
the output will be a HTML document
html
body
h1A nice function/h1
p
codetripleThis($n)/code returns the three-fold of the given
number code$n$/code.
/p
p
Its implementation is as follows:
/p
precodefunction tripleThis($n) {
return 3 * $n;
}
/code/pre
/body
/html
So this is a HTML document generated from the PHP source, which is thus
both, a PHP script and its own documentation.
(I left away the intermediate step, that the script is first translated
into Markdown, and that is then translated into HTML. But the normal user
will not need this intermediate Markdown step.)
One of the weaknesses for most programming is that people postpone writing
the documentation.
In one of the few programming courses I had, the instructor had us write
the user manual first. THEN write the top level description of the program,
including documenting the algorithms. ONLY then could we write the
program. After we had to correct the previous levels.
This is exactly the way I personally use my ElephantMark (or PhpCodeDown)
all the time! Both the PHP program and its HTML documentation can grow
gradually and simultaneously, and both have the same single source file!
There is a lot of merit in this for anything that is too complicated to fit
into a single file.
In addition this approach requires no changes to markdown.
Codedown then only has to recognize a different commenting style for
whatever language you are using, which I think would make it quick to write.
I am not sure again, if I understand this last part. But maybe, it only
makes sense in your interpretation.
Thank you again, Sherwood, for your comment.
I think, for people knowing Markdown, the CodeDown idea is all too simple:
you just need one, two, or three syntax rules concerning the modification of
comments in the original programming language. And just that makes it so
universal and easy.
But maybe, it is so simple, that it is too difficult for me to explain.
Greetings,
Thomas
On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 10:17 AM, bucephalus org bucephalus.org@
gmail.com wrote:
Dear Markdown enthusiasts out there!
Sure, I don't need to tell you how great an versatile Markdown is for
writing standard documents.
I think, that it would make a really great universal standard as a
programming documentation language, too, and maybe CodeDown would be a
good title for this approach.
The idea started when I was trying to document some PHP scripts. I need
to use different programming languages for different purposes, but I am not
a
