Reviews for Literate programming

The average rating for Literate programming based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-08-20 00:00:00 Courtnay Coulombe For the most part, I will assume that folks picking up this book are already predisposed to like the ideas. I will say that it provides a very nice historical context into how software creation has progressed. In particular, the essay on "goto" statements was a lot more fun than would have been expected. Highlights definitely include the Programming Pearls essay, the final CWEB example, and the retrospective on TeX bugs. The retrospective is fascinating to get an idea of just how Knuth approaches software construction. I have since bought the TeXbook and related material to see any insights that gives. It would be a delight to see how he sketched the high level design of the system. I should note that Knuth goes out of his way to say that Literate Programming *will not* lead to error free software. Rather, the point is that this style can more easily motivate others (including your future self) to read an implementation, such that they can more easily find the bugs. This is an argument that is very appealing to me. Especially in what I perceive as the current environment where the popular currents feel that they are trying to remove all "considered harmful" practices such that they can not be used even for valid uses. I look forward to at least trying these techniques on more of my side projects, while keeping the dream of using it on a large one.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-10-28 00:00:00 Steven Boy Three-and-a-half stars? I'm not entirely sure what to think about this book. On one hand, it did make me think, and some of the articles, such as "Computer Programming as an Art" and "The Errors of TEX" were particularly good. But the central thesis of the book, literate programming, just did not work for me, at least not in the examples provided. Frankly I did not find Knuth's literate programs either fun to read, or more easily understood than well designed code with well chosen variable and function names would have been (and far too many of Knuth's variable names are obscure). The reordering of code didn't really do anything for me, nor did I find the use of special symbols to enhance a program's readability. But it works for some people -- the approach still has its adherents, and I certainly feel more in sympathy with them than with the "comments as an antipattern" crowd.