Re: simple vs complex languages

Basile STARYNKEVITCH <basile@starynkevitch.net> wrote:
>
>It is a pity that no [major] programming language accept HTML pages
>(or even .doc documents,...), or even provide its own fancy editor. In
>particular, integrating some ideas from the literate programming
>movement inside programming languages is not done. Comments are still
>simple sequence of characters (perhaps with a specific markup like in
>javadoc or ocamldoc). Our program sources are not hypertextual (even
>if a few research papers mention this).


One of the things I was introduced to when working for Inmos was the
idea of a folding editor which uses specially-formatted comments to
describe a hierarchial structure in the file, similar to the block
structure of a program. However the fold marks are independent of the
actual program, so they can be used to add conceptual structure to it,
e.g. blocks of related declarations at the top level of a C file.
(I've thought that adding a new kind of fold mark for hyperlinking to
another fold in the same or a different file might be a useful
addition, if it isn't too confusing.)


The disadvantage of folds is that they allow you to hide away the
contents of big sprawling functions, and (especially in the Inmos
incarnation) make it much easier to let your code march off the
right-hand-side of the screen. They do encourage more commenting than
usual, but since fold marks are only one line the comments tend to be
telegraphic.


Tony.
--
f.a.n.finch <dot@dotat.at> http://dotat.at/

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