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I think it is possible to produce code that conveys everything the spec would. The problem is the same as with Donald Knuth literate programming: to use it, you

I think it is possible to produce code that conveys everything the spec would. The problem is the same as with Donald Knuth literate programming: to use it, you now require your coders to be both great programmers AND great writers. And these two traits rarely coincide in a single person.

eikenberry 5y ago
IMO this is why good developers are so in demand. They are those rare people who are good at both. People who are great at both are the fabled 10X or 100X programmers. Writing code is writing foremost for communication. If you are not good at writing you aren't good at programming. There is really no way around that.
entropicdrifter 5y ago
The other problem with literate programming having been pointed out by McIlroy: https://leancrew.com/all-this/2011/12/more-shell-less-egg/ https://leancrew.com/all-this/2011/12/more-shell-less-egg/
- npsimons 5y ago
  Wait, is this the same McIlroy who claimed that PL/I has features no other language has, then listed syntactic sugars and things that could be implemented easily in libraries? Edit: After having read the link, yes, McIlroy has a point. For quick prototyping, a one off, above all else small project, the UNIX way fits, and fits well. It's a philosophy I agree with and use on a very regular basis as a sysadmin. But as a developer on larger projects, where chunking them into pipeable tools would probably result in 1000 pipes, any one of which might break, and you want to hand it off to people who don't even know what a pipe is, well, I'm sorry, but I'm going to make something in the tools that they understand and use, and I'll make it more fault-tolerant to boot. And yes, I've run into exactly this sort of situation multiple times in my career. I might prototype with pipes and commands, but Larry Wall invented Perl for a damn good reason. Really, TL;DR is that Bentley picked an over simple problem (count words in a file), asked Knuth to write a program in the literate programming style, and McIlroy completely missed the point of the exercise. What a shame, he might have had something useful or insightful to say had he understood what Bentley and Knuth were trying to achieve.
taeric 5y ago
I think invoking literate programming is spot on. One of the keys there is that it lets you discuss additions to previous parts of the code really well. Something that no other style really does. And is one of the things that makes "readable" code so hard. We want a view of the code that acts as a parts list and as a narrative all in one.

eikenberry 5y ago

IMO this is why good developers are so in demand. They are those rare people who are good at both. People who are great at both are the fabled 10X or 100X programmers. Writing code is writing foremost for communication. If you are not good at writing you aren't good at programming. There is really no way around that.

entropicdrifter 5y ago

The other problem with literate programming having been pointed out by McIlroy: https://leancrew.com/all-this/2011/12/more-shell-less-egg/ https://leancrew.com/all-this/2011/12/more-shell-less-egg/

npsimons 5y ago
Wait, is this the same McIlroy who claimed that PL/I has features no other language has, then listed syntactic sugars and things that could be implemented easily in libraries? Edit: After having read the link, yes, McIlroy has a point. For quick prototyping, a one off, above all else small project, the UNIX way fits, and fits well. It's a philosophy I agree with and use on a very regular basis as a sysadmin. But as a developer on larger projects, where chunking them into pipeable tools would probably result in 1000 pipes, any one of which might break, and you want to hand it off to people who don't even know what a pipe is, well, I'm sorry, but I'm going to make something in the tools that they understand and use, and I'll make it more fault-tolerant to boot. And yes, I've run into exactly this sort of situation multiple times in my career. I might prototype with pipes and commands, but Larry Wall invented Perl for a damn good reason. Really, TL;DR is that Bentley picked an over simple problem (count words in a file), asked Knuth to write a program in the literate programming style, and McIlroy completely missed the point of the exercise. What a shame, he might have had something useful or insightful to say had he understood what Bentley and Knuth were trying to achieve.

taeric 5y ago

I think invoking literate programming is spot on. One of the keys there is that it lets you discuss additions to previous parts of the code really well. Something that no other style really does. And is one of the things that makes "readable" code so hard. We want a view of the code that acts as a parts list and as a narrative all in one.