Re: Extending javadoc for C/C++

Norman Ramsey <nr@adder.cs.virginia.edu>
8 May 1997 01:03:45 -0400

          From comp.compilers

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From: Norman Ramsey <nr@adder.cs.virginia.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Followup-To: comp.programming.literate
Date: 8 May 1997 01:03:45 -0400
Organization: University of Virginia
References: 97-05-010
Keywords: C, C++, documentation

Steve Masticola <masticol@scr.siemens.com> wrote:
  > Hi, all,
  > I've been looking into embedded documentation mechanisms for C/C++...
  > ...
  > - The best competitor, Don Knuth's "literate programming" and CWEB
  > (http://www-cs-faculty.Stanford.EDU/~knuth/books.html) have not taken
  > off in widespread practice, for whatever reason.*
  > ...
  > * My personal belief is that Knuth violated a dictum of software
  > evangelism: "As far as I'm concerned, if something is so complicated
  > that you can't explain it in 10 seconds, then it's probably not worth
  > knowing anyway." ["Calvin's Axiom," from Calvin and Hobbes.]


I can't resist an opening like this :-)


CWEB is a *terrible* competitor, precisely because it's far too
complicated. The best implementations literate programming are noweb
and nuweb, which both offer sane, simple realizations of Knuth's idea.
Much more about this in the comp.programming.literate FAQ (where I've
set followups), or in http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~nr/noweb/.


Norman
--
Norman Ramsey
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~nr
--


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