Literate Programming, as coined by [[Donald Knuth]], is an approach to writing computer programs that emphasizes human-readable documentation and explanation of the code. In literate programming, the focus is on telling a coherent and understandable story about the program, rather than solely on the code itself. The main idea behind literate programming is to treat the program as a piece of literature, where the program code and accompanying documentation are woven together in a unified document. The documentation, often written in natural language, provides explanations, insights, and motivations behind the design decisions and algorithms used in the program. The code is presented in a way that follows the narrative of the documentation, illustrating how the program works and how each part contributes to the overall solution. Key features and concepts of literate programming include: 1. **Program as Documentation**: In literate programming, the program is viewed as a document meant to be read and understood by humans, rather than solely as a set of instructions executed by a computer. The primary audience for the code is the programmer themselves or other developers who need to comprehend and maintain the program. 2. **Code and Documentation Integration**: Literate programming emphasizes the seamless integration of code and documentation. Rather than having separate code files and documentation files, literate programs are written in a single document where code and explanatory text are interleaved. 3. **Structured Narrative**: The documentation in literate programming is structured like a narrative, presenting a logical flow of ideas and concepts. It typically includes explanations of algorithms, design decisions, and the reasoning behind the code. The narrative structure helps readers understand the program's overall structure and the connections between different components. 4. **Extracting Executable Code**: A literate programming system can process the combined code and documentation file to extract the executable code. This extraction process usually involves a special tool called a literate programming tool or a literate programming system. These tools can extract the code for compilation or execution while ignoring the explanatory text. 5. **Multiple Views**: Literate programming encourages the presentation of the program from different perspectives. The same code can be described and analyzed in various ways, emphasizing different aspects or levels of abstraction. This flexibility allows the programmer to provide multiple views of the program, catering to different levels of understanding and expertise. The most well-known literate programming system developed by Donald Knuth is called WEB. It combines the Pascal programming language with a documentation system to produce literate programs. However, the concept of literate programming is not tied to any specific programming language or tool. It is a general approach that can be applied to various programming languages and environments. Literate programming aims to enhance program comprehension, encourage good software engineering practices, and foster collaboration among programmers by providing a comprehensive and readable document that explains the code's purpose, design, and implementation choices. # References ```dataview Table title as Title, authors as Authors where contains(subject, "Literate programming") ```