Literate programming sounds like a good idea to me in theory, but in practice it looks like it takes as much time to do the literate programming bit as it takes to just do the programming bit. In theory I would like to do it, but I suspect that if I started trying to do it, then for the first couple of hours I would bother to do it diligently, then after that I would not bother so much.
I think most people are probably as lazy as I am. If not lazy, then at least they have deadlines which would get in the way of the diligent "Literating" of their code. It seems good in theory, but in practice it is probably true that nobody is auteristic, or dare I say autistic, enough to keep it up. How many large programs/organisations use/enforce Literate Programming anyway? With hindsight we might all wish that we had documented our code better from the outset, but practical realities mean that most of us are just happy to get something working and state what the input and output should look like before moving onto the next task. 2009/9/22 Raul Miller <[email protected]> > My problem with literate programming is finding the code. > ("Literate code" usually gets buried in text, and finding it > can be frustrating.) > > And, sometimes, my problem with literate programming is > finding the purpose of the code. (Literate programming does > not guarantee good technical writing.) > > Basically... having a lot of comments is not at all the same as > having good comments. > > What I want to know, when I am dealing with code, is: > > What does the code get used for? > > What data is in the domain of the code? > > How do the results look? > > Other than that, and having good names for things, comments > usually just get in my way. > > (Of course, knowing when things changed and who made the > change can be useful when dealing with problems, but that > really belongs in source control and not in the code itself.) > > -- > Raul > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
