On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 16:34, erik quanstrom<quans...@quanstro.net> wrote: >> For the task to be done "print the k most common words in a file", the >> Unix approach and the Unix tools give everything to create a "program" >> far more rapidly than the from scratch approach adopted by D. Knuth. But >> because the tools exist (are already written... but in what language? >> Easily understandable? Maintainable? etc.). > > the problem i have with "literate programming" is that it > tends to treat code like a terse and difficult-to-understand > footnote. it seems to me that "literate programs" tend to > spend too much time commenting on straightforward code > or code that is easier read than explained. ironicly, the > assumption seems to be that one is illiterate in the computer > language at hand.
I'd guess that depends a great deal on the author's style. In the paper I quoted, I wouldn't say that's true at all of Knuth's discussion. I personally am very aware of this tendency, and only comment to introduce a bit of code and place it within the overall structure, on extremely clever constructions (on the BWK gibe that I won't be smart enough to debug it later), and to describe how the code segment interacts with others and maps to the problem domain. Jason Catena
