Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!LOM1.MATH.YALE.EDU!ara
From: ara@LOM1.MATH.YALE.EDU (Allan Adler)
Newsgroups: gnu.gcc
Subject: Literate GCC
Message-ID: <8912030414.AA05673@LOM1.MATH.YALE.EDU>
Date: 3 Dec 89 04:14:49 GMT
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I like the GCC documentation but I wish that the GCC source code itself
could be documented as thoroughly as TeX and METAFONT are. This is not
to say that they are not well documented. But the most thorough documentation
I have seen is in programs written in WEB, developed by Knuth in connection
with his concept of "Literate Programming". 

But how can this be done with GCC ? In order to use WEB, one would have to
write GCC in Pascal, which I think no one wants to do. On the other hand,
there is a program called CWEB which documents C programs the way that
WEB is used to document Pascal programs. Unfortunately, to the best of my
knowledge, CWEB is proprietary software and it would be contrary to the
principles and probably to the best interests of FSF to depend on it
for documentation. But there is no reason why FSF cannot develop its own
CWEB and use it to document the source code to GNU software.

The availability of a free CWEB would raise the level of documentation
of source code for all complex C programs. If it is desirable to have
source code available then it must also be desirable to enhance its
readability to the nonspecialist. So the value of such an undertaking
would go beyond its application to GNU software. And why shouldn't such
a tool be a part of the GNU operating system ?

I am unfortunately not competent to do it. But I wish somebody would.

Allan Adler
ara@lom1.math.yale.edu


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