Original-Via: uk.ac.ed.aiai; Wed, 29 Jan 92 16:02:58 GMT
> > Could someone please explain to me why there needs to be support
> > for literate comments in the language (rather than in the editor
> > or some other program) and why conventions involving > or
> > .troff-like-commands are good ones? Maybe I'm just thick, but
> > I don't get it.
>
> I agree that the principle of literate programming is more important
> than the particular notation used. The great advantages of fixing
> the notation within the language are readability (I don't have to
> master someone else's notation to read their program) and portability
> (I can compile someone else's program without having to have a copy
> of their editor or their clever filter program).
But the comments aren't portable (maybe they're TeX, maybe they're
troff), and the programs that will process the comments (TeX, troff,
etc) don't know about literate programming in Haskell, so don't you
still need to have a filter and to master their notation (TeX, whatever)
they use in comments? Or am I misunderstanding what literate comments
are?
