TeX 1995 July/TeX CD-ROM July 1995 (Disc 1)(Walnut Creek)(1995).ISO/web/literateprog/web.tex

LaTeX Document | 1992-09-23 | 73KB | 1,340 lines

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\titlepage
\leftline{\kern13mm\CompJtitle Literate Programming}
\kern6mm
\CJrule
\kern4.5mm
\leftline{\kern13mm\bf Donald E. Knuth}
\kern2pt
\leftline{\kern13mm\eightrm Computer Science Department, Stanford University,
  Stanford, CA 94305, USA}
\kern4mm
\CJrule
\kern6mm
\leftline{\kern13mm\vbox{\hsize=151mm\CompJabstract\noindent
The author and his associates have been experimenting for the past several
years with a programming language and documentation system called \WEB.
This paper presents \WEB\ by example, and discusses why the new
system appears to be an improvement over previous ones.}}
\bigskip\bigskip
\begindoublecolumns
\beginsection A. INTRODUCTION
The past ten years have witnessed substantial improvements in programming
methodology. This advance, carried out under the banner of ``structured
programming,'' has led to programs that are more reliable and easier to
comprehend; yet the results are not entirely satisfactory. My purpose
in the present paper is to propose another motto that may be appropriate
for the next decade, as we attempt to make further progress in the
state of the art. I believe that the time is ripe for significantly
better documentation of programs, and that we can best achieve this by
considering programs to be {\it works of literature}. Hence, my title:
``Literate Programming.''
Let us change our traditional attitude to the construction of programs:
Instead of imagining that our main task is to instruct a {\it computer\/}
what to do, let us concentrate rather on explaining to {\it human beings\/}
what we want a computer to do.
The practitioner of literate programming can be regarded as an essayist, whose
main concern is with exposition and excellence of style. Such an author,
with thesaurus in hand, chooses the names of variables carefully and explains
what each variable means. He or she strives for a program that is
comprehensible because its concepts have been introduced in an order that
is best for human understanding, using a mixture of formal and informal
methods that re\"\i nforce each other.
I dare to suggest that such advances in documentation are possible because
of the experiences I've had during the past several years while working
intensively on software development. By making use of several ideas that
have existed for a long time, and by applying them systematically in a
slightly new way, I've stumbled across a method of composing programs
that excites me very much. In fact, my enthusiasm is so great that I must warn
the reader to discount much of what I shall say as the ravings of a fanatic
who thinks he has just seen a great light.
Programming is a very personal activity, so I can't be certain that what has
worked for me will work for everybody. Yet the impact of this new approach on
my own style has been profound, and my excitement has continued unabated
for more than two years. I~enjoy the new methodology so much that it is hard
for me to refrain from going back to every program that I've ever written
and recasting it in ``literate'' form. I~find myself unable to resist working
on programming tasks that I would ordinarily have assigned to student
research assistants; and why? Because it seems to me that at last I'm able
to write programs as they should be written. My programs are not only
explained better than ever before; they also are better programs,
because the new methodology encourages me to do a better job. For these
reasons I am compelled to write this paper, in hopes that my experiences
will prove to be relevant to others.
I must confess that there may also be a bit of malice in my choice of
a title. During the 1970s I was coerced like everybody else into adopting
the ideas of structured programming, because I couldn't bear to be found
guilty of writing {\it unstructured\/} programs. Now I have a chance
to get even. By coining the phrase ``literate programming,'' I am imposing
a moral commitment on everyone who hears the term; surely nobody wants
to admit writing an {\it il{}literate\/} program.
\beginsection B. THE \WEB\ SYSTEM
I hope, however, to demonstrate in this paper that the title is not merely
wordplay. The ideas of literate programming have been embodied in a language
and a suite of computer programs that have been developed at Stanford
University during the past few years as part of my research on algorithms
and on digital typography. This language and its associated programs
have come to be known as the \WEB\ system. My goal in what follows is
to describe the philosophy that underlies \WEB, to present examples
of programs in the \WEB\ language, and to discuss what may be the future
implications of this work.
I chose the name \WEB\ partly because it was one of the few three-letter
words of English that hadn't already been applied to computers. But as time
went on, I've become extremely pleased with the name, because I~think
that a complex piece of software is, indeed, best regarded as a {\it web\/}
that has been delicately pieced together from simple materials. We
understand a complicated system by understanding its simple parts, and by
understanding the simple relations between those parts and their immediate
neighbors. If we express a program as a web of ideas, we can emphasize
its structural properties in a natural and satisfying way.
\WEB\ itself is chiefly a combination of two other languages:
(1)~a document formatting language and (2)~a programming language.
My prototype \WEB\ system uses \TeX\ as the document formatting
language and \PASCAL\ as the programming language, but the same
principles would apply equally well if other languages were
substituted. Instead of \TeX, one could use a language like Scribe
or Troff; instead of \PASCAL, one could use {\mc ADA}, {\mc ALGOL},
{\mc LISP}, {\mc COBOL}, {\mc FORTRAN}, {\mc APL}, {\mc C}, etc., or
even assembly language. The main point is that \WEB\ is inherently
bilingual, and that such a combination of languages proves to be much
more powerful than either single language by itself. \WEB\ does not
make the other languages obsolete; on the contrary, it enhances them.
I naturally chose \TeX\ to be the document formatting language, in the
first \WEB\ system, because \TeX\ is my own creation;\ref\TeXbook{D. E. Knuth,
{\sl The \TeX book}. Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass., U.S.A. (1983).}
I wanted to acquire a lot of experience in harnessing \TeX\ to a variety
of different tasks.  I~chose \PASCAL\ as the programming language because
it has received such widespread support from educational institutions all
over the world; it is not my favorite language for system programming, but
it has become a ``second language'' for so many programmers that it
provides an exceptionally effective medium of communication. Furthermore
\WEB\ itself has a macro-processing ability that makes \PASCAL's
limitations largely irrelevant.
Document formatting languages are newcomers to the computing scene, but
their use is spreading rapidly. Therefore I'm confident that we will be
able to expect each member of the next generation of programmers to be
familiar with a document language as well as a programming language,
as part of their basic education. Once a person knows both of the
underlying languages, there's no trick at all to learning \WEB, because
the \WEB\ user's manual is fewer than ten pages long.
A \WEB\ user writes a program that serves
as the source language for two different system routines. (See Figure~1.)
One line of processing is called {\it weaving\/} the web; it produces
a document that describes the program clearly and that facilitates program
maintenance. The other line of processing is called {\it tangling\/} the
web; it produces a machine-executable program. The program and its
documentation are both generated from the same source, so they are
consistent with each other.
\bigskip
\centerline{\vbox{
    \halign{&\hss#\hss\cr
    &&&\TeX\cr
    \noalign{\vskip-4pt}
    &&\encircle{TEX}&\enspace\rightarrowfill\enspace&\encircle{DVI}\cr
    \multispan2\hfil\smash{\raise4pt\hbox{\tt WEAVE}\kern-1pt}$\nearrow$ \cr
    \noalign{\vskip6pt}
    \encircle{WEB}\cr
    \noalign{\vskip6pt}
    \multispan2\hfil\smash{\lower6pt\hbox{\tt TANGLE}\kern-1pt}$\searrow$ \cr
    &&\encircle{PAS}&\enspace\rightarrowfill\enspace&\encircle{REL}\cr
    \noalign{\vskip-2pt}
    &&&\mc\ PASCAL\ \cr}
    }}
\nobreak\medskip
\caption 1. Dual usage of a {\tt WEB} file.
\bigbreak
Let's look at this process in slightly more detail. Suppose you have
written a \WEB\ program and put it into a computer text file called
{\tt COB.WEB} (say). To generate hardcopy documentation for your program,
you can run the {\tt WEAVE} processor; this is a system program that takes
the file {\tt COB.WEB} as input and produces another file {\tt COB.TEX}
as output. Then you run the \TeX\ processor, which takes {\tt COB.TEX}
as input and produces {\tt COB.DVI} as output. The latter file,
{\tt COB.DVI}, is a ``device-independent'' binary description of how
to typeset the documentation, so you can get printed output by applying
one more system routine to this file.
You can also follow the other branch of Figure~1, by running the
{\tt TANGLE} processor; this is a system program that takes the file
{\tt COB.WEB} as input and produces a new file {\tt COB.PAS} as output.
Then you run the \PASCAL\ compiler, which converts {\tt COB.PAS} to
a binary file {\tt COB.REL} (say). Finally, you can run your program
by loading and executing {\tt COB.REL}. The process of ``compile, load,
and go'' has been slightly lengthened to ``tangle, compile, load, and go.''
\beginsection C. A COMPLETE EXAMPLE
Now it's time for me to stop presenting general platitudes and to move on
to something tangible. Let us look at a real program that has been written
in \WEB. The numbered paragraphs that follow are the actual output of a
\WEB\ file that has been ``woven'' into a document; a computer has also
generated the indexes that appear at the program's end. If my claims for
the advantages of literate programming have any merit, you should be able
to understand the following description more easily than you could
have understood the same program when presented in a more conventional
way. However, I am trying here to explain the format of \WEB\ documentation
at the same time as I am discussing the details of a nontrivial algorithm,
so the description below is slightly longer than it would be if it were
written for people who already have been introduced to \WEB.
\silentref\Dijk{O.-J.~Dahl, E.~W. Dijkstra, and C.~A.~R. Hoare,
{\sl Structured Programming}. Academic Press, London and New York (1972).}
\silentref\goto{D. E. Knuth, Structured programming with {\bf go to}
statements. {\sl Computing Surveys\/ \bf6}, 261--301 (1974).}
Here, then, is the computer-generated output:
\bigskip
\CJrule
\medskip
\begingroup
\def\prune\input webmac{\input primes.contents}
\def\Z#1#2#3{\line{\ignorespaces#1\ \dotfill\ {\tensy x}#2}}
\def\M#1.{\MN#1.\iftrue\medbreak\startsection\ignorespaces}
\def\firstmod{1}
\def\N#1.#2.{\MN#1.\iftrue\nobreak
  \ifx\modno\firstmod\medskip\else\bigskip\fi
  \CJrule\medbreak\startsection
  {\bf\ignorespaces#2.\quad}\ignorespaces}
\def\inx{\par\medbreak
  \def\:##1, {\par\hangindent2em\noindent##1:\kern1em}
  \def\[##1]{$\underline{##1}$}
  \rm \rightskip0pt plus2.5em \tolerance10000 \let\*=\lapstar
  \hyphenpenalty10000 \parindent0pt}
\def\fin{\par\bigskip\CJrule\medbreak
  \parfillskip0pt plus1fil
  \def\note##1##2.{\hfil\penalty-1\hfilneg\quad{\eightrm##1 ##2.}}
  \def\U{\note{Used in}}
  \def\:{\par\hangindent 2em}\let\*=*}
\let\con=\par
\parskip=0pt
\expandafter\prune\input primes
\endgroup
\beginsection D. HOW THE EXAMPLE WAS SPECIFIED
Everything reproduced above, from the table of contents preceding the
program to the indexes of identifiers and section names at the end,
was generated by applying the program {\tt WEAVE} to a source file
{\tt PRIMES.WEB} written in the \WEB\ language. Let us now look at that
file {\tt PRIMES.WEB}, in order to get an idea of what a \WEB\ user
actually types.
There's no need to show very much of {\tt PRIMES.WEB}, however, because
that file is reflected quite faithfully by the formatted output. Figure~2
contains enough of the \WEB\ source to indicate the general flavor;
a reader who is familiar with the rudiments of \TeX\ will be able to
reconstruct all of {\tt PRIMES.WEB} by looking only at the formatted
output and Figure~2.
\leftfloat
\ttverbatim
/hrule
/medskip
\font\ninerm=cmr9
\let\mc=\ninerm % medium caps
\def\WEB{{\tt WEB}}
\def\PASCAL{{\mc PASCAL}}
\def\[{\ifhmode\ \fi$[\mkern-2mu[$}
\def\]{$]\mkern-2mu]$\ }
/cvdots
\hyphenation{Dijk-stra}
/medskip
@* Printing primes: An example of \WEB.
The following program is essentially the same
as Edsger Dijkstra's @^Dijkstra, Edsger@>
``first example of step-wise program
composition,'' found on pages 26--39
of his {\sl Notes on Structured
Programming},$^\Dijk$  but it has been
translated into the \WEB\ language. @.WEB@>
/medskip
\[Double brackets will be used in what
follows to enclose comments relating to \WEB\
/cvdots
an informal top-level description.\]
/medskip
@p @<Program to print the first thousand
prime numbers@>
/endverbatim
\medskip
\caption 2a. The beginning of {\tt PRIMES.WEB}.
\medskip
\hrule
\endfloat
Figure 2a starts with \TeX\ commands (not shown in full) that make it
convenient to typeset double brackets $[\mkern-2mu[\ldots]\mkern-2mu]$
and to give special typographic treatment to names like `\WEB' and `\PASCAL'.
A \WEB\ user generally begins by declaring such special aspects of the
document format; for example, if nonstandard fonts of type are needed,
they are usually stated first. It may also be necessary to specify the
correct hyphenation of non-English words that appear in the document.
Then comes `{\tt@*}', which starts the program proper. \WEB\ uses the
symbol `{\tt@}' as an escape character for special instructions to the
{\tt WEAVE} and {\tt TANGLE} processors. Everything between such special
commands is either expressed in \TeX\ language or in \PASCAL\ language,
depending on the context.
Each section of the program begins either with `{\tt@ }' (i.e., at-sign
and space) or `{\tt@*}' (i.e., at-sign and asterisk); \WEB\ supplies the
section numbers automatically. The latter case, `{\tt@*}', denotes a
{\it major section\/} of the program, for which a special title is given.
This title will appear in boldface type, and it will also appear in the
table of contents, and as a running headline on all pages of the
woven documentation until another major section begins. Each major section
starts at the top of a page. (Such page beginnings have been indicated
by horizontal lines in our example, because \WEB's normal output format
has been adapted to the format of this journal. The output of {\tt WEAVE}
usually has a lot more white space, and the individual lines of text
are usually quite a bit wider.)
The lines that follow in Figure~2a show a few more \WEB\ instructions:
`{\tt@\char`^}' marks the beginning of an index entry to be set in roman
type; `{\tt@>}' marks the end of an argument to a \WEB\ command;
`{\tt@.}'\ marks the beginning of an index entry to be set in typewriter
type; `{\tt@p}' marks the beginning of the \PASCAL\ program; and `{\tt@<}'
marks the beginning of a top-level description, i.e., of a section
name in the \WEB\ program.
\rightfloat
\ttverbatim
/hrule
/medskip
@ This program has no input, because we want
to keep it rather simple.  The result of the
program will be to produce a list of the
first thousand prime numbers, and this list
will appear on the |output| file.
/medskip
Since there is no input, we declare the value
|m=1000| as a compile-time constant. The
program itself is capable of generating the
first |m| prime numbers for any positive |m|,
as long as the computer's finite limitations
are not exceeded.
/medskip
\[The program text below specifies the
``expanded meaning'' of `\X2:Program to print
$\ldots$ numbers\X'; notice that it involves
the top-level descriptions of three other
sections. When those top-level descriptions
are replaced by their expanded meanings, a
syntactically correct \PASCAL\ program will
be obtained.\]
/medskip
@<Program to print...@>=
program print_primes(output);
const @!m=1000;
@<Other constants of the program@>@;
var @<Variables of the program@>@;
begin @<Print the first |m| prime numbers@>;
/endverbatim
\medskip
\caption 2b. The \WEB\ code that generated \sec2.
\ttverbatim
/bigskip
/hrule
/medskip
@ In order to keep this program reasonably
free of notations that are uniquely
\PASCAL esque, \[and in order to illustrate
/cvdots
The first three macro definitions here are
parametric; the other two are simple.\]
/medskip
@d print_string(#)==write(#)
 {put a given string into the |output| file}
@d print_integer(#)==write(#:1)
 {put a given integer into the |output|
  file, in decimal notation, using only as
  many digit positions as necessary}
@d print_entry(#)==write(#:ww)
 {like |print_integer|, but
  |ww| character positions are filled,
  inserting blanks at the left}
@d new_line==write_ln
 {advance to a new line in the |output| file}
@d new_page==page
 {advance to a new page in the |output| file}
/endverbatim
\medskip
\caption 2c. The \WEB\ code that generated \sec6.
\medskip
\hrule
\endfloat
Figure 2b immediately follows Figure~2a in the \WEB\ file. This material
is what generated \sec2 of the documentation, and it illustrates the
bilingual nature of \WEB: The commentary at the beginning of each section
is typed in \TeX\ language, and the program text at the end is typed
in \PASCAL\ language.
Language-switching between \TeX\ and \PASCAL\ is occasionally desirable.
For example, when you refer to technical details about the program, you
usually want to describe them in \PASCAL, hence you want {\tt WEAVE} to format
them with the typographic conventions it uses for \PASCAL\ programs.
Conversely, when you put comments in a \PASCAL\ program, you want
the text of those comments to be formatted by \TeX\ in the normal way.
\WEB\ files use vertical bars to introduce \PASCAL\ formatting in the
midst of \TeX\ formatting; for example, Figure~2b says `{\tt the
|output| file}' in order to typeset `the \\{output} file'.
The program text in Figure~2b begins with `{\tt@<}' instead of with the
`{\tt@p}' command used in Figure~2a, because the program text in~\sec2
is the expansion of a specific top-level description. Notice that the
top-level description has been abbreviated to `{\tt@<Program to print...@>}'.
Since the names of sections tend to be rather long, it is a nuisance to
type them in full each time; \WEB\ allows you to type `{\tt...}'\ after you
have given enough text to identify the remainder uniquely.
The `{\tt@!}'\ operation in the program text of Figure~2b governs the
underlining of index entries. The `{\tt@;}'\ specifies an invisible symbol
that has the effect of a semicolon in \PASCAL\ syntax. Commands such as these
are comparatively unimportant, but they are available for polishing up
the final documentation when you want to maintain fine control.
Figure 2c shows key portions of the \WEB\ text that generated \sec6.
Notice that the command `{\tt@d}' introduces a macro definition.
All features of \WEB\ that appear in our example program are illustrated
in Figures 2a, 2b, and~2c; the remainder of {\tt PRIMES.WEB} simply
uses the same conventions again and again. In fact, most of the \WEB\
file is much simpler than the examples shown here; Figure~2 has
illustrated only the difficult parts.
\beginsection E. THE TANGLED OUTPUT
Figure 3 shows the \PASCAL\ program {\tt PRIMES.PAS} that results when
{\tt TANGLE} is applied to {\tt PRIMES.WEB}. This program is not intended
for human consumption---it's only supposed to be readable by a \PASCAL\
compiler---so {\tt TANGLE} does not go to great pains to produce a
beautiful format. Notice that underlines have been removed from the
identifier names, and that all of the letters have been converted to
uppercase (except in strings); {\tt TANGLE} tries to produce a format
that will be acceptable to a standard \PASCAL\ compiler.
{\tt TANGLE} removes all of the commentary in the \WEB\ file, but it
inserts new comments of its own. If for some reason you need
to correlate the tangled \PASCAL\ code with the woven documentation,
you can find the program text for, say, \sec8 by looking between
the comments `{\tt\char`\{8:\char`\}}' and `{\tt\char`\{:8\char`\}}'.
A comparison of Figure~3 to Figure~2 should make it clear why the
{\tt TANGLE} processor has acquired its name.
\rightfloat
\ttverbatim
/hrule
/medskip
{1:}{2:}PROGRAM PRINTPRIMES(OUTPUT);
CONST M=1000;{5:}RR=50;CC=4;WW=10;{:5}{19:}
ORDMAX=30;{:19}VAR{4:}
P:ARRAY[1..M]OF INTEGER;{:4}{7:}
PAGENUMBER:INTEGER;PAGEOFFSET:INTEGER;
ROWOFFSET:INTEGER;C:0..CC;{:7}{12:}J:INTEGER;
K:0..M;{:12}{15:}JPRIME:BOOLEAN;{:15}{17:}
ORD:2..ORDMAX;SQUARE:INTEGER;{:17}{23:}
N:2..ORDMAX;{:23}{24:}
MULT:ARRAY[2..ORDMAX]OF INTEGER;{:24}
BEGIN{3:}{11:}{16:}J:=1;K:=1;P[1]:=2;{:16}
{18:}ORD:=2;SQUARE:=9;{:18};
WHILE K<M DO BEGIN{14:}REPEAT J:=J+2;{20:}
IF J=SQUARE THEN BEGIN ORD:=ORD+1;{21:}
SQUARE:=P[ORD]*P[ORD];{:21}{25:}
MULT[ORD-1]:=J;{:25};END{:20};{22:}N:=2;
JPRIME:=TRUE;
WHILE(N<ORD)AND JPRIME DO BEGIN{26:}
WHILE MULT[N]<J DO MULT[N]:=MULT[N]+P[N]+P[N]
;IF MULT[N]=J THEN JPRIME:=FALSE{:26};N:=N+1;
END{:22};UNTIL JPRIME{:14};K:=K+1;P[K]:=J;
END{:11};{8:}BEGIN PAGENUMBER:=1;
PAGEOFFSET:=1;
WHILE PAGEOFFSET<=M DO BEGIN{9:}
BEGIN WRITE('The First ');WRITE(M:1);
WRITE(' Prime Numbers --- Page ');
WRITE(PAGENUMBER:1);WRITELN;WRITELN;
FOR ROWOFFSET:=PAGEOFFSET TO PAGEOFFSET+RR-1
DO{10:}
BEGIN FOR C:=0 TO CC-1 DO IF ROWOFFSET+C*RR<=
M THEN WRITE(P[ROWOFFSET+C*RR]:WW);WRITELN;
END{:10};PAGE;END{:9};
PAGENUMBER:=PAGENUMBER+1;
PAGEOFFSET:=PAGEOFFSET+RR*CC;END;END{:8}{:3};
END.{:2}{:1}
/endverbatim
\medskip
\caption 3. PASCAL program generated from the \WEB\ file.
\medskip
\hrule
\endfloat
\beginsection F. THE WOVEN OUTPUT
I mentioned earlier that {\tt WEAVE} is a program that converts a file
like {\tt PRIMES.WEB} into a file {\tt PRIMES.TEX} that is a syntactically
correct source file for \TeX. Figure~4 gives a sampling of {\tt PRIMES.TEX},
which is even more unreadable than {\tt PRIMES.PAS}. The instructions that
cause \TeX\ to produce formatted \PASCAL\ programs, with appropriate
typefaces and indentation, etc., are somewhat complex because they are
supposed to give decent results regardless of the page size.
There is no need to discuss Figure~4 further in the present paper, because
the details of ``pretty printing'' are not relevant to my main theme.
I have shown this much of {\tt PRIMES.TEX} only to make the point that
it is nice to have a program like {\tt WEAVE} to do all the formatting;
computer programs are not easy to typeset.
\leftfloat
\ttverbatim
/hrule
/medskip
\input webmac
\font\ninerm=amr9
/cvdots
syntactically correct \PASCAL\ program will
be obtained.\]
/medskip
\Y\P$\4\X2:Program to print the first
thousand prime numbers\X\S$\6
\4\&{program}\1\  \37$\\{print\_primes}(%
\\{output})$;\6
\4\&{const} \37$\|m=1000$;\5
\X5:Other constants of the program\X\6
\4\&{var} \37\X4:Variables of the program\X\6
\&{begin} \37\X3:Print the first \|m prime
numbers\X;\6
\&{end}.\par
\U section~1.\fi
/cvdots
The first three macro definitions here are
parametric; the other two are simple.\]
/medskip
\Y\P\D \37$\\{print\_string}(\#)\S\\{write}(%
\#)$\C{put a given string into the %
\\{output} file}\par
/cvdots
\:{Bertrand, Joseph, postulate}, 21.
\:\\{boolean}, 15.
/cvdots
\:\.{WEB}, 1.
\:\\{write}, 6.
\:\\{write\_ln}, 6.
\:\\{ww}, \[5], 6.
/cvdots
\:\X4, 7, 12, 15, 17, 23, 24:Variables of
the program\X
\U section~2.
/endverbatim
\medskip
\caption 4. \TeX\ program generated from the \WEB\ file.
\medskip
\hrule
\endfloat
\beginsection G. ADDITIONAL BELLS AND WHISTLES
A system like \WEB\ can be successful only if it is capable of handling
large programs as well as small ones, and only if it is complete enough
to take care of all the practical requirements that arise when many
different kinds of programs are considered. A small example like
{\tt PRIMES.WEB} is a satisfactory vehicle for illustrating the general
ideas, but it cannot be convincing as a demonstration of \WEB's ability
to produce quality software in the ``real world.'' My original design
of \WEB\ in September, 1981, was followed by a year of extensive
experiments, so that by the time Version~1 was released in
September, 1982, I could be fairly confident that the language was
reasonably complete. Since then only one or two small extensions
have proved to be necessary; and although numerous enhancements can
easily be imagined, I believe that a useful stopping point for a
working system called {\tt WEB83} has been reached.
A full description of {\tt WEB83} appears in a Stanford report,\ref\WEBman%
{D. E. Knuth, {\sl The \WEB\kern-2pt\ System of Structured Documentation}.
Stanford Computer Science Report CS980 (September 1983).}
which also contains the complete \WEB\ programs for {\tt WEAVE} and
{\tt TANGLE}. The full language contains only a few features that
do not show up in the {\tt PRIMES} example considered above:
\def\nindent#1{\noindent\hbox to\parindent{#1)\hfil}\ignorespaces}
\smallskip
\nindent1 There are facilities to override {\tt WEAVE}'s
automatic formatting of \PASCAL\ programs. For example, it is
possible to force a statement to begin on a new line, or to force
several statements to appear on the same line, or to suggest
a desirable breakpoint in the middle of a long expression. In
unusual cases, {\tt WEAVE} must parse program fragments that
are not syntactically complete---for example, there may be a
{\bf begin} without a matching {\bf end}---so a \WEB\ user must
be given a chance to control the results. Furthermore there is a
facility for changing {\tt WEAVE}'s formatting rules by declaring
that a certain identifier should be treated as a certain \PASCAL\
reserved word, or by declaring that a certain reserved word
should be treated as an ordinary identifier.
\smallskip
\nindent2 There is a way to force {\tt TANGLE} to omit a
space between two adjacent pieces of text, so that a name
like `\\{x3}' can be manufactured from `\|x' and `\\3'. Similarly,
there is a way to pass an arbitrary sequence of characters through
{\tt TANGLE} so that the same sequence will appear ``verbatim'' in
the \PASCAL\ file; and there is a way to force beginning-of-line
in that file. The latter extensions have proved to be necessary
to deal with various nonstandard conventions of different \PASCAL\ compilers.
When a comment in braces is sent to the \PASCAL\ file, {\tt TANGLE}
is careful not to introduce further braces inside the comment.
\smallskip
\nindent3 There are facilities for octal and hexadecimal constants in \WEB\
thees. {\tt TANGLE} converts such constants to decimal form; {\tt WEAVE} gives
them an appropriate typographic treatment.
\smallskip
\nindent4 There is a facility for dealing with alphabetic constants.
When a program contains a double-quoted character like {\tt"A"},
{\tt TANGLE} converts this to an integer between 0 and~127 that
equals the corresponding {\mc ASCII} code (in this case 65).
The use of {\mc ASCII} code facilitates the construction of software
that is readily portable from one machine to another, independent of
the actual character set in use.
\smallskip
\nindent5 Furthermore, if a double-quoted constant is a string
of several characters, like {\tt"cat"}, {\tt TANGLE} converts it
into a unique integer that is 128 or more. A special {\it string pool
file\/} is written, containing all of the strings that have been
specially encoded in this way. I have used this general mechanism only
in large programs, but experience has shown that it makes quite a
nice substitute for the string-processing capabilities that \PASCAL\
lacks. (Incidentally, I noticed after several months that a program
needs to have some indication that the string-pool file it is reading
contains the same strings that {\tt TANGLE} generated when the program
itself was tangled. Therefore a ``check sum'' is included in the
string pool file; each program is able to refer to its own check sum
and to compare it with the value in the file. This check-sum extension
was one of the last features to be added to \WEB.)
\smallskip
\nindent6 The {\tt PRIMES} example illustrates macros with
parameters and macros without parameters. \WEB\ also allows ``numeric''
macros, which are small integer constants; {\tt TANGLE} is capable of
doing simple arithmetic on such constants. This feature of \WEB\ was
introduced specifically to overcome \PASCAL's unfortunate inability to
do compile-time arithmetic. For example, it is impossible to have a
\PASCAL\ array whose bounds are `$0\to n-1$', or to write
`$20+3:$' as the label of one of the cases in `{\bf case} $x+y$';
\WEB's numeric macros make it possible for {\tt TANGLE} to
preprocess such constants.
\beginsection H. OCCAM'S RAZOR
I would also like to mention several things that were intentionally left
out of \WEB, since I have tried to keep the language as simple as I could.
There are no ``conditional macros,'' nor does {\tt TANGLE}
evaluate Boolean expressions that might influence the
output. I~found that everything I needed could be done
satisfactorily by commenting out the optional code.
For example, a system program is often designed to gather statistics about
its own operation, but such statistics-gathering is pointless unless someone
is actually going to use the results. In order to make the instrumentation
code optional, I include the word `{\bf stat}' just before any special
code for statistics, and `{\bf tats}' just after such code; and I tell
{\tt WEAVE} to regard {\bf stat} and {\bf tats} as if they were {\bf begin}
and {\bf end}. But {\bf stat} and {\bf tats} are actually simple macros.
When I do want to gather the statistics, I define {\bf stat} and {\bf tats} to
be null; but in a production version of the software, I make {\bf stat}
expand to~`{\tt@\char`\{}' and {\bf tats} expand to~`{\tt@\char`\}}',
where {\tt@\char`\{} and {\tt@\char`\}} are special braces that {\tt TANGLE}
does not remove. Thus the optional code appears as a harmless comment in
the \PASCAL\ program.
\WEB's macros are allowed to have at most one parameter. Again, I did this
in the interests of simplicity, because I noticed that most applications
of multiple parameters could in fact be reduced to the one-parameter case.
For example, suppose that you want to define something like
$$\hbox{\tt mac(\#1,\#2) == m[\#1*r+\#2]}$$
which \WEB\ doesn't permit. You can get essentially the same result
with two one-parameter macros
$$\vbox{\halign{\tt#\hfil\cr
mac\char`\_tail(\#) == \#]\cr
mac(\#) == m[\#*r+mac\char`\_tail\cr}}$$
since, e.g., `{\tt mac(a)(b)}' will expand into `{\tt m[a*r+b]}'.
Here is another example that indicates some of the surprising generality
of one-parameter macros: Consider the two definitions
$$\vbox{\halign{\tt#\hfil\cr
define two\char`\_cases(\#)==case j of\cr
\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ 1:\#(1); 2:\#(2); end\cr
define reset\char`\_file(\#)==reset(file@\&\#)\cr}}$$
where `{\tt@\char`\&}' in the second definition is the concatenation operation
that pastes two texts together. You can now say
$$\hbox{\tt two\char`\_cases(reset\char`\_file)}$$
and the resulting \PASCAL\ output will be
$$\vbox{\halign{\tt#\hfil\cr
case j of\cr
1:reset(file1);\cr
2:reset(file2);\cr
end\cr}}$$
In other words, the name of one macro can usefully be a parameter to
another macro. This particular trick makes it possible to live with
\PASCAL\ compilers that do not allow arrays of files.
\beginsection I. PORTABILITY
One of the goals of my \TeX\ research has been to produce portable
software, and the {\tt WEB} system has been extremely helpful in this
respect. Although my own work is done on a DEC-10 computer with
Stanford's one-of-a-kind operating system, the software developed
with \WEB\ has already been transported successfully to a wide
variety of computers made by other manufacturers (including IBM,
Control Data, XEROX, Hewlett-Packard), and to a variety
of different operating systems for those machines. To my knowledge,
no other software of such complexity has ever been transported to
so many different machines. It seems likely that \TeX\ will soon be
operating on all but the smallest of the world's computer systems.
To my surprise, the main bottleneck to portability of the \TeX ware
has been the lack of suitable \PASCAL\ compilers, because \PASCAL\ has
often been implemented without system programming in mind. Anybody
who has a decent \PASCAL\ compiler can install \WEB\ (and all programs
written in \WEB) without great difficulty, essentially as follows:
\smallskip
\item{1)} Start with the three files {\tt WEAVE.WEB}, {\tt TANGLE.WEB}, and
{\tt TANGLE.PAS}. (The programs have not been copyrighted, so
these files are not difficult to obtain.)
\item{2)} Run {\tt TANGLE.PAS} through your \PASCAL\ compiler to
get a working {\tt TANGLE} program.
\item{3)} Check your {\tt TANGLE} by applying it to {\tt TANGLE.WEB};
your output file should match {\tt TANGLE.PAS}.
\item{4)} Apply your {\tt TANGLE} to the file {\tt WEAVE.WEB}, obtaining
{\tt WEAVE.PAS}; then apply \PASCAL\ to {\tt WEAVE.PAS} and you'll
have a working {\tt WEAVE} system.
\item{5)} The same process applies to any software written in \WEB,
notably to \TeX\ itself. (However, you need fonts and suitable output
equipment in order to make proper use of \TeX; that may be another
bottleneck.) Once you have \TeX\ working, you can apply {\tt WEAVE}
and \TeX\ to your \WEB\ files, thereby getting program documents
as illustrated above.
\smallskip\noindent
Notice that a {\tt TANGLE.PAS} file is needed in order to get this
``bootstrapping'' process started. If you have just {\tt WEAVE.WEB}
and {\tt TANGLE.WEB}, you can't do the first step.
However, anybody who has looked seriously into the question of software
portability will realize that my comments in the preceding paragraphs
have been oversimplified. I have glossed over some serious
problems that arise: Character sets are different; file naming conventions
are different; special conventions are needed to interact with a user's
terminal; data is packed differently on different machines; floating-point
arithmetic is always nonstandard and sometimes nonexistent; users want
``friendly'' interaction with existing programs for editing and spooling;
etc., etc. Furthermore, many of the world's \PASCAL\ compilers are incredibly
bizarre. Therefore it is quite na\"\i ve to believe that a single program
{\tt TANGLE.PAS} could actually work on very many different machines, or
even that one single source file {\tt TANGLE.WEB} could be adequate; some
system-dependent\kern-.5pt\kern.5pt\ changes are inevitable.
The \WEB\ system caters to system-dependent changes in a simple but surprisingly
effective way that I neglected to mention when I listed its other features.
Both {\tt TANGLE} and {\tt WEAVE} are designed to work with
{\it two\/} input files, not just one: In addition to a \WEB\ source file
like {\tt TEX.WEB}, there is also a ``change file'' {\tt TEX.CH} that
contains whatever changes are needed to customize \TeX\ for a particular
system. (Similarly, the source files {\tt WEAVE.WEB} and {\tt TANGLE.WEB}
are accompanied by {\tt WEAVE.CH} and {\tt TANGLE.CH}.)
Here's how change files work: Each change has the form ``replace
$x_1\ldots x_m$ by $y_1\ldots y_n$,'' for some $m\ge 1$ and $n\ge0$;
here $x_i$ and~$y_j$ represent lines in the change file.
The {\tt WEAVE} and {\tt TANGLE} programs
read data from the \WEB\ input file until finding a line that matches
$x_1$; this line, and the $m-1$ following lines, are replaced by
$y_1\ldots y_n$.  An error message is given if the $m$ lines replaced did
not match $x_1\ldots x_m$ perfectly.
For example, the program {\tt PRIMES.WEB} invokes a \\{page} procedure to
begin a new page; but \\{page} was not pres\-ent in Wirth's original \PASCAL\
and it is defined rather vaguely in the \PASCAL\ standard. Therefore
a system-dependent change may be needed here. A change file {\tt
PRIMES.CH} could be made by copying the line
$$\hbox{\tt @d new\char`\_page==page}$$ from
Figure~2c and specifying one or more appropriate replacement lines.
The program {\tt TANGLE} itself contains about 190 sections, and a
typical installation will have to change about 15 of these. If you
want to transport {\tt TANGLE} to a new environment, you therefore
need to create a suitable file {\tt TANGLE.CH} that modifies 15~or~so parts
of {\tt TANGLE.WEB}. (Examples of {\tt TANGLE.CH} are provided to
all people who receive {\tt TANGLE.WEB}, so that each implementor has
a model of what to do.) You need to insert your changes by hand into
{\tt TANGLE.PAS}, until you have a {\tt TANGLE} program that works
sufficiently well to support further bootstrapping. But you never
actually change the master file {\tt TANGLE.WEB}.
This approach has two important advantages. First, the same
master file {\tt TANGLE.WEB} is used by everybody, and it
contains the basic logic of {\tt TANGLE} that really defines the
essence of tangling. The system-dependent changes do not affect
any of the subtle parts of {\tt TANGLE}'s control structures or
data structures. Second, when the official {\tt TANGLE} has been
upgraded to a newer version, a brand new {\tt TANGLE.WEB} will
almost always work with the old {\tt TANGLE.CH}, since changes
are rarely made to the system-dependent parts. In other words,
this dual-input-file scheme works when the \WEB\ file is constant
and the {\tt CH} file is modified, and it also works when the
{\tt CH} file is constant but the \WEB\ file is modified.
Change files were added to \WEB\ about three months after the system was
initially designed, based on our initial experiences with people who had
volunteered to participate in portability experiments. We realized
about a year later that {\tt WEAVE} could be modified so that
only the changed parts of a program would (optionally) be printed; thus,
it's now possible to document the changes by listing only the sections
that are actually affected by the {\tt CH} file that {\tt WEAVE} has
processed. We also generalized the original format of {\tt CH} files,
which permitted only changes that extended to the end of a section. These
two important ideas were among the final enhancements incorporated into
{\tt WEB83}.
\beginsection J. PROGRAMS AS WEBS
When I first began to work with the ideas that eventually became the
\WEB\ system, I thought that I would be designing a language for ``top-down''
programming, where a top-level description is given first and successively
refined. On the other hand I knew that I often created major parts
of programs in a ``bottom-up'' fashion, starting with the definitions of
basic procedures and data structures and gradually building more and
more powerful subroutines. I had the feeling that top-down and bottom-up
were opposing methodologies: one more suitable for program exposition
and the other more suitable for program creation.
But after gaining experience with \WEB, I have come to realize that there is
no need to choose once and for all between top-down and bottom-up, because
a program is best thought of as a web instead of a tree. A hierarchical
structure is present, but the most important thing about a program is
its structural relationships. A complex piece of software consists of
simple parts and simple relations between those parts; the programmer's
task is to state those parts and those relationships, in whatever order
is best for human comprehension---not in some rigidly determined
order like top-down or bottom-up.
When I'm writing a longish program like {\tt TANGLE.WEB} or {\tt WEAVE.WEB}
or {\tt TEX.WEB}, I invariably have strong feelings about what part of the
whole should be tackled next. For example, I'll come to a point where I need
to define a major data structure and its conventions, before I'll feel
happy about going further. My experiences have led me to believe that a
person reading a program is, likewise, ready to comprehend it by
learning its various parts in approximately the order in which it
was written. The {\tt PRIMES.WEB} example illustrates this principle on
a small scale; the decisions that Dijkstra made as he composed the original
program$^\Dijk$ appear in the \WEB\ documentation in the same order.
Top-down programming gives you a strong idea of where you are going, but
it forces you to keep a lot of plans in your head; suspense builds up
because nothing is really nailed down until the end. Bottom-up programming
has the advantage that you continually wield a more and more powerful
pencil, as more and more subroutines have been constructed; but it forces
you to postpone the overall program organization until the last minute,
so you might flounder aimlessly.
When I tear up the first draft of a program and start over, my second draft
usually considers things in almost the same order as the first one did.
Sometimes the ``correct'' order is top-down, sometimes it is bottom-up,
and sometimes it's a mixture; but always it's an order that makes sense on
expository grounds.
Thus the \WEB\ language allows a person to express programs
in a ``stream of consciousness'' order. {\tt TANGLE} is able to scramble
everything up into the arrangement that a \PASCAL\ compiler demands. This
feature of \WEB\ is perhaps its greatest asset; it makes a \WEB-written
program much more readable than the same program written purely in
\PASCAL, even if the latter program is well commented. And the fact that there's
no need to be hung up on the question of top-down versus bottom-up---since
a programmer can now view a large program as a web, to be explored in
a psychologically correct order---is perhaps the greatest lesson I have
learned from my recent experiences.
Another surprising thing that I learned while using \WEB\ was that
traditional programming languages had been causing me to write inferior
programs, although I hadn't realized what I was doing. My original idea was that
\WEB\ would be merely a tool for documentation, but I actually found that
my \WEB\ programs were better than the programs I had been writing
in other languages. How could this be?
Well, imagine that you are writing a small subroutine that updates part
of a data structure, and suppose that the updating takes only
one or two lines of code. In practical programs, there's often something
that can go wrong, if the user's input is incorrect, so the subroutine
has to check that the input is correct before doing the update.
Thus, the subroutine has the general form
$$\vbox{\halign{#\hfil\cr
\&{procedure} \\{update};\cr
\&{begin if} \<input data is invalid\> \&{then}\cr
\quad \<Issue an error message and try to recover\>;\cr
\<Update the data structure\>;\cr
\&{end}.\cr}}$$
A subtle phenomenon occurs in traditional programming languages: While
writing the program for `\<Issue an error message and try to recover\>',
a programmer subconsciously tries to get by with the fewest possible
lines of code, since the program for `\<Update the data structure\>' is
quite short. If an extensive error recovery is actually programmed, the
subroutine will appear to have error-message printing as its main purpose.
But the programmer knows that the error is really an exceptional case that
arises only rarely; therefore a lengthy error recovery doesn't look right,
and most programmers will minimize it (without realizing that they are doing
so) in order to make the subroutine's appearance match its intended behavior.
On the other hand when the same task is programmed with \WEB, the purpose
of \\{update} can be shown quite clearly, and the possibility of error
recovery can be reduced to a mere mention when \\{update} is defined.
When another section entitled `\<Issue an error message and try to
recover\>' is subsequently written, the whole point of that section is to do
the best error recovery, and it becomes quite natural to write a better program
as a result.
This fact---that \WEB\ allows you to let each part of the program have
its appropriate size, without distorting the readability of other parts---means
that good programmers find their \WEB\ programs better than their \PASCAL\
programs, even though their \PASCAL\ programs once looked like the work
of an expert.
\beginsection K. STYLISTIC ISSUES
I found that my style of using \WEB\ evolved quite a bit during the first
year. The general format, in which each section beings with commentary and
ends with a formal program fragment, is extremely versatile; you have the
freedom to say anything you want, yet you must make a decision about how
you'll do it.  I imagine that different programmers will converge to
quite different styles, but I would like to note down some of the things
that have seemed to work best for me.
Consider first the question of macros versus section names. A named section,
like `\<Issue an error message and try to recover\>', is essentially the
same as a parameterless macro; \WEB\ provides both. I prefer to use
parameterless macros for ``small'' things that can be embodied in a word
or two, but named sections for longer portions of the program that
merit a fuller description.
I usually start the name of a section with an imperative verb, but I give
a declarative commentary at the beginning of a section. Thus,
{\tt PRIMES.WEB} says `{\bf 8.}~Now that appropriate $\ldots$
\X8:Print table $p$\X$\;\S\;$\dots\thinspace'; I wouldn't do the opposite
and say `{\bf8.}~Print the table. \X8:Code for printing\X$\;\S\;$\dots'.
The name of a section (enclosed in angle brackets) should be long enough
to encapsulate the essential characteristics of the code in that section,
but it should not be too verbose. I found very early that it would be a
mistake to include all of the assumptions about local and global variables
in the name of each section, even though such information would strictly
be necessary to isolate that section as an independent module. The trick is
to find a balance between formal and informal exposition so that a reader
can grasp what is happening without being overwhelmed with detail.\ref\Naur%
{P. Naur, Formalization in program development. {\sl BIT\/ \bf22},
437--453 (1982).}
Another lesson I learned early in the game was that the name of a section
should explicitly mention any nonstandard control structures, even though
its data structures can often be left implied. Furthermore, if the control
flow is properly explained, you can avoid the usual errors associated
with \&{goto} statements; such statements can safely be introduced in
a restrained but natural manner.
For example, \sec14 of the prime-printing example could be reprogrammed as
follows, using `\&{loop}' as a macro abbreviation for `\&{while} \\{true}
\&{do}':
$$\vbox{\halign{\hbox to\hsize{#\hfil}\cr
\X14:Increase $j$ until it is the next prime number\X$\;\S$\cr
\quad\&{loop begin} $j\K j+2$;\cr
\qquad\X20:Update variables that depend on $j$\X;\cr
\qquad\X22:If $j$ is prime, \&{goto} \\{found}\X;\cr
\qquad\&{end};\cr
\\{found}:\cr}}$$
With this change, \sec22 could become
$$\vbox{\halign{\hbox to\hsize{#\hfil}\cr
\X22:If $j$ is prime, \&{goto} \\{found}\X$\;\S$\cr
\quad$n\K2$;\cr
\quad\&{while} $n<\\{ord}$ \&{do}\cr
\qquad\&{begin} \X26:If $p[n]$ is a factor of $j$, \&{goto} \\{not\_found}\X;\cr
\qquad$n\K n+1$;\cr
\qquad\&{end};\cr
\quad\&{goto} \\{found};\cr
\\{not\_found}:\cr}}$$
if \sec26 changes in the obvious way. The resulting program will be more
efficient on most machines; and I believe that it is actually easier to
read and to write, in spite of the fact that two \&{goto} statements
appear, because the labels have been used with appropriate interpretations
of their abstract significance.
Of course, \PASCAL\ makes it difficult to use \&{goto} statements,
because Wirth decided that labels should be numeric, and that they
should be declared in advance. If I were to introduce the \&{goto}
statements as suggested, I would have to define numeric macros
\\{found} and \\{not\_found}, and I would have to insert
`\&{label} \\{found}, \\{not\_found}' into the program at the right place.
Such extra work is a bit of a nuisance, but it can be done in \WEB\ without
spoiling the exposition.
\PASCAL\ has a few other misfeatures that prove to be inconvenient with
respect to \WEB\ exposition. The worst of these is the inability to
declare local variables in the midst of a program or procedure. For
example, a programmer often finds it most natural to define an integer
variable when a \&{for} loop is introduced, but the rules of \PASCAL\
insist that such a variable be declared rather far away from
that \&{for} loop. My \WEB\ programs overcome this problem by having
sections like `\<Local variables for \\{xyzzy}\>' whenever there's a
rather lengthy procedure `\\{xyzzy}' whose local variables should not
be declared all at once. But when a procedure is short, say only half
a dozen sections long, there's usually no harm in declaring its local
variables in \PASCAL\ style, because the entire text of the procedure will
tend to appear on one or two adjacent pages of the documentation.
Another slightly awkward aspect of \PASCAL\ is its treatment of semicolons.
If you look closely at the prime-number example, you'll see that I had to
be a bit careful about where I put semicolons; sometimes they occur at the
end of the expanded text of a section, but usually they don't. With
a little self discipline, a person can learn to do this quite satisfactorily,
but it is a nuisance until you get used to it.
\beginsection L. ECONOMIC ISSUES
What does it cost to use \WEB? Let's look first at the lowest level, where
computer costs are considered, because it is easy to make quantitative
statements at this level. The running time to {\tt TANGLE} a \WEB\ file is
approximately the same as the time needed to compile the resulting
\PASCAL\ program; hence the extra preprocessing does not cost much.
Similarly, {\tt WEAVE} doesn't take long to produce a file for \TeX.
However, \TeX\ needs a comparatively large amount of time to typeset the
final document. For example, if we assume that each page requires four
seconds, it will take four minutes to produce a 60-page document. The
running time for {\tt WEAVE}-plus-\TeX\ is quite reasonable when you
consider that your program is effectively being
converted into a fairly substantial booklet; but the costs are sufficiently
large to discourage remaking and reprinting such a booklet more than once or
twice a day. When a new program is being developed, it is therefore customary
to work with hardcopy documentation that is slightly obsolete, and to read
the \WEB\ source file itself when up-to-date information is required;
the source file is sufficiently easy to read for such purposes.
The costs of \WEB\ are more difficult to estimate at higher levels, but I have
found to my surprise that the total time of writing and debugging a \WEB\
program is no greater than the total time of writing and debugging an
{\mc ALGOL} or {\mc PASCAL} program, even though my \WEB\ programs are
much better, and even though I am putting substantially more documentation
into the programs. Therefore I have lately been using \WEB\ for all of my
programming, even for one-off jobs that I write ``for my eyes only'' just
to explore occasional problems. The extra time I spend in preparing additional
commentary is regained because the debugging time is reduced.
In retrospect, the fact that a ``literate'' program takes much less time to
debug is not surprising, because the \WEB\ language encourages a discipline
that I was previously unwilling to impose on myself. I had known for a long
time that the programs I construct for publication in a book, or the programs
that I construct in front of a class, have tended to be comparatively free
of errors, because I am forced to clarify my thoughts as I do the programming.
By contrast, when writing for myself alone, I have often taken shortcuts that
proved later to be dreadful mistakes. It's harder for me to fool myself in
such ways when I'm writing a \WEB\ program, because I'm in ``expository
mode'' (analogous to classroom lecturing) whenever a \WEB\ is being spun.
Ergo, less debugging time.
Now that I am writing all my programs in \WEB, an unforeseen problem has,
however, arisen: I suddenly have a collection of programs that seem quite
beautiful in my own eyes, and I have a compelling urge to publish all of
them so that everybody can admire these works of art. A nice little 10-page
program can easily be written and debugged in an afternoon and evening;
if I keep accumulating such gems, I'll soon run out of storage space,
and my office will be encrusted with webs of my own making. There is no
telling what will happen if lots of other people catch \WEB\ fever and
start foisting their creations on each other. I can already envision the
appearance of a new journal, to be entitled {\sl Webs}, for the publication
of literate programs; I imagine that it will have a large backlog and
a large group of dedicated editors and referees.
\beginsection M. RELATED WORK
Nothing about \WEB\ is really new; I have simply combined a bunch of
ideas that have been in the air for a long time. I would like to
summarize in the next few paragraphs the things that had the greatest
influence on my thinking as I put those pieces together.
George Forsythe wrote in 1966 that ``A useful algorithm is a substantial
contribution to knowledge. Its publication constitutes an important
piece of schol\-ar\-ship.''\ref\GEF{G. E. Forsythe, Algorithms for
scientific computation. {\sl Communications of the ACM\/ \bf9}, 255--256
(1966).} His comments have always inspired me to strive for excellence
in programming, and they have played a major r\^^Dole in shaping my present
view that it is worthwhile to consider {\it every\/} program as a
work of literature.
The design of \WEB\ was influenced primarily by the pioneering work
of Pierre-Arnoul de Marneffe,\ref\deM{P. A. de Marneffe, {\sl Holon
Programming}. Univ.~de Liege, Service D'Informatique (December, 1973).}$^,$%
\ref\deMR{P. A. de Marneffe and D. Ribbens, Holon Programming, in
A. G\"unther et al.\ (eds.), {\sl International Computing Symposium 1973\/},
Amsterdam, North-Holland (1974).} whose research on what he called
``Holon Programming'' has not received the attention it deserves. His
work was, in turn, inspired by Arthur Koestler's excellent treatise
on the structure of complex systems and organisms;\ref\Koest{A.
Koestler, {\sl The Ghost in the Machine}. New York, Macmillan (1968).}
thus we have another connection between programming and literature.
A somewhat similar system was independently created by Edwin Towster.\ref\Tow%
{E. Towster, A convention for explicit declaration of environments
and top-down refinement of data. {\sl IEEE Transactions on Software
Engineering\/ \bf SE--5}, 374--386 (1979).}
I owe a great debt to Edsger Dijkstra, Tony Hoare, Ole-Johan Dahl, and
Niklaus Wirth for opening my eyes to the importance of abstraction in the
reading and writing of programs, and to Peter Naur for stressing the
importance of a balance between formal and informal methods.
Tony Hoare provided a special impetus for \WEB\ when he suggested in 1978
that I should publish my program for \TeX. Since very few large-scale
software systems were available in the literature, he had been trying to
promote the publication of well-written programs. Hoare's suggestion was
actually rather terrifying to me, and I'm sure he knew that he was posing
quite a challenge. As a professor of computer science, I was quite
comfortable publishing papers about toy problems that could be polished up
nicely and presented in an elegant manner; but I had no idea how to take a
piece of real software, with all the compromises necessary to make it
useful to a large class of people on a wide variety of systems, and to open
it up to public scrutiny. How could a supposedly respectable academic, like
me, reveal the way he actually writes large programs? And could a large
program be made intelligible? My previous attempts along these
lines\ref\CF{D. E. Knuth, Computer-drawn flow charts.  {\sl
Communications of the ACM\/ \bf 6}, 555--563 (1963).} were by now
hopelessly out of date.  I decided that this would be a good time to try
out de Marneffe's ideas; furthermore, the \TeX\ system itself provided me
with new tools for printing and format control, so I suspected that it
would be possible to obtain state-of-the-art documentation by making
proper use of typography.
It is interesting to reread some of the comments that Tony made ten years
ago in his keynote address to the first ACM symposium on Principles
of Programming Languages:\ref\Hoare{C. A. R. Hoare, {\sl Hints on
Programming Language Design}. Stanford Computer Science Report CS403
(October 1973).}
\smallskip
{\narrower\noindent
Documentation must be regarded as an integral part of the process of
design and coding. A good programming language will encourage and
assist the programmer to write clear, self-documenting code, and even
perhaps to develop and display a pleasant style of writing.
\smallskip}
\noindent He foresaw many future trends, but not the impending improvements in
typesetting quality:
\smallskip
{\narrower\noindent
It is of course possible for a compiler or service program to expand the
abbreviations, fill in the defaults, and make explicit the assumptions.
But in practice, experience shows that it is very unlikely that the
output of a computer will ever be more readable than its input, except
in such trivial but important aspects as improved indentation.
\smallskip}
Typographic formatting of computer programs has a long tradition, originating
with {\mc ALGOL} and its immediate precursors. I'm not sure who made the
first experiments, but I believe that the lion's share of the credit
for developing excellent programming-language typography belongs to two
people: Peter Naur, who edited the {\mc ALGOL~60} report\ref\Alg{P. Naur
(ed.)~et al., Report on the algorithmic language ALGOL 60.
{\sl Communications of the ACM\/ \bf3}, 299--314.} and gave special
care to its presentation; and Myrtle Kellington, who served for many years
as executive editor of ACM publications and set the standards that have
been adopted by other journals. The computing profession owes much to
these people, who made published programs so much more readable than they
would otherwise have been; the magnitude of their contribution can only
be appreciated by people who submit computer programs to journals
like {\sl Acta Arithmetica\/} whose editors are unfamiliar with computer
science. Bill McKeeman called attention to formatting issues when he
published Algorithm~268, ``{\mc ALGOL~60} reference language editor,''
in 1965.\ref\McK{W. M. McKeeman, Algorithm 268. {\sl Communications
of the ACM\/ \bf8}, 667--668 (1965).} There has been a flowering of
such algorithms in recent years; the papers by Oppen\ref\DO{D. Oppen,
Prettyprinting. {\sl ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and
Systems\/ \bf2}, 465--483 (1980).} and by Rose and Welsh\ref\RW{G. A.
Rose and J. Welsh, Formatted programming languages. {\sl Software---%
Practice \char'46\ Experience\/ \bf11}, 651--669 (1981).} are particularly
noteworthy.
I began to design \WEB\ in the spring of 1979, when I constructed a prototype
system that was called {\tt DOC}. Luis Trabb~Pardo helped me to develop
a suitable style of exposition at that time; then Ignacio Zabala~Salelles
gave a {\tt DOC} a thorough test when he prepared a full implementation
of \TeX\ in \PASCAL. Zabala's implementation was successfully transported
to many different computers,\ref\Z{I. Zabala and L. Trabb Pardo,
The status of the PASCAL implementation of \TeX. {\sl TUGboat\/ \bf1},
16--17 (1980).}\silentref\ZZ{I. Zabala, \TeX-PASCAL and PASCAL compilers.
{\sl TUGboat\/ \bf2} (1), 11--12 (1981).}\silentref\ZZZ{I. Zabala,
Some feedback from PTEX installations. {\sl TUGboat\/ \bf2} (2), 16--19
(1981).}$^-$\ref\ZZZZ{I. A. Zabala, How
portable is PASCAL? Draft of paper in preparation (1982).}
and this experience was of immense value to me when I cast \WEB\ into its
present form in 1981. Since then many significant improvements have been
suggested by my colleague David R. Fuchs, and I have also benefited from
the experiences of a large number of outstanding people who volunteered to
be guinea pigs for pre-released versions of \TeX. It's impossible for me
to name everyone who has helped, but I would like to give special thanks
to Arthur Samuel, Howard Trickey, Joe Weening, and Pierre MacKay for
important contributions. I'm fortunate indeed to share a working
environment with such stimulating people.
When I originally designed the \WEB\ system, I spent about six
weeks preparing the files {\tt TANGLE.WEB} and {\tt WEAVE.WEB},
during which time I was continually changing the language and
trying different styles of exposition. (The programs were neither
long nor complicated, but this was rather intensive work, so I
didn't get much else done during those six weeks. The first two
weeks were actually spent drafting the first ten per cent of what
is now {\tt TEX.WEB}.) Then I spent about six tedious hours with
a text editor, hand-simulating the behavior of {\tt TANGLE} on
{\tt TANGLE.WEB}, so that I had a program {\tt TANGLE.PAS} that
was ripe for debugging.  At first I had to correct errors both in
{\tt TANGLE.WEB} and {\tt TANGLE.PAS}, but soon {\tt TANGLE} was
working well enough that I needed only {\tt TANGLE.WEB} as a
source file. Then {\tt WEAVE.WEB} could be tangled and debugged
too. The total time to create ``Version~0'' of the \WEB\ system,
including the language design and the time to debug the programs
and write a brief manual for users, was about eight weeks; then
enhancements were added at the rate of about one per month for
the next 18 months.  As a result of this experience I think it's
reasonable to state that a {\tt WEB}-like system can be created
from scratch in a fairly short time, for some other pair of
languages besides \TeX\ and \PASCAL, by an expert system
programmer who is conversant with both languages. Indeed, I spoke
about \WEB\ on a recent visit to London and one of the people in
the audience decided to test this hypothesis; shortly afterwards I
received an elegant report from Harold Thimbleby, who had just constructed
an excellent system called {\tt Cweb}, based on Troff/Nroff and {\mc
C} instead of \TeX\ and \PASCAL.\ref\Thim{H. Thimbleby, {\sl Cweb}.
Preprint, University of York (August 1983).}
\beginsection N. RETROSPECT AND PROSPECTS
Enthusiastic reports about new computer languages, by the authors of those
languages, are commonplace. Hence I'm well aware of the fact that my own
experiences cannot be extrapolated too far. I also realize that, whenever I have
encountered a problem with \WEB, I've simply changed
the system; other users of \WEB\ cannot operate under the same ground rules.
However, I believe that I have stumbled on a way of programming that produces
better programs that are more port\-able and more easily understood and
maintained; furthermore, the system seems to work with large programs as
well as with small ones. I'm pleased that my work on typography, which
began as an application of computers to another field, has come full circle
and become an application of typography to the heart of
computer science; I like to think of \WEB\ as a neat ``spinoff'' of my
research on \TeX. However, all of my experiences with this system have
been highly colored by my own tastes, and only time will tell if a large
number of other people will find \WEB\ to be equally attractive and useful.
I made a conscious decision not to design a language that would be
suitable for everybody. My goal was to provide a tool for system
programmers, not for high school students or for hobbyists. I don't have
anything against high school students and hobbyists, but I don't believe
every computer language should attempt to offer all things to all people.
A user of \WEB\ needs to be good enough at computer science that he or she
is comfortable dealing with several languages simultaneously. Since
\WEB\ combines \TeX\ and \PASCAL\ with a few rules of its own, \WEB\ programs
can contain \WEB\ syntax errors, \TeX\ syntax errors, \PASCAL\ syntax errors,
and algorithmic errors; in practice, all four types of errors occur, and
a bit of sophistication is needed to sort out which is which. Computer
scientists tend to be better at such things than other people. I have found
that \WEB\ programs can be debugged rapidly in spite of the profusion
of languages, but I'm sure that many other intelligent people will find
such a task difficult.
In other words, \WEB\ seems to be specifically for the peculiar breed of
people who are called computer scientists. And I'm pretty sure that there
are also a lot of computer scientists who will not enjoy using \WEB; some
of us are glad that traditional programming languages have comparatively
primitive capabilities for inserted comments, because such difficulties provide
a good excuse for not documenting programs well. Thus, \WEB\ may be only for the
subset of computer scientists who like to write and to explain what they
are doing. My hope is that the ability to make explanations more natural will
cause more programmers to discover the joys of literate programming,
because I believe it's quite a pleasure to combine verbal and mathematical
skills; but perhaps I'm hoping for too much. The fact that at least one
paper has been written that is a syntactically correct {\mc ALGOL 68}
program\ref\ft{C. H. Lindsey, ALGOL 68 with fewer tears. {\sl The
Computer Journal\/ \bf15}, 176--188 (1972).} encourages me to persevere
in my hopes for the future. Perhaps we will even one day find Pulitzer
prizes awarded to computer programs.
And what about the future of \WEB? If the next year or so of trial use
shows that a lot of other people besides myself become ``hooked'' on this
method of programming, there will be many ways to incorporate the \WEB\
philosophy into a really effective programming environment. For example,
it will be worthwhile to produce a unified system that does both
tangling and compiling, instead of using separate programs as in Figure~1;
and it will also be worthwhile to carry the unification one step further,
so that run-time debugging as well as syntactic debugging can be done
entirely in terms of the \WEB\ source language. Furthermore, a \WEB-like
system could be designed to incorporate additional modularization,
so that it would be easier to compile different parts of a program
independently. The new generation of graphic workstations makes it
desirable to display selected program sections on demand, by using \TeX\
only on the sections that are of current interest, instead of producing
hardcopy for an entire document. And so on; a considerable amount of
additional research and development will be appropriate if the idea
of literate programming catches on.
\bigskip\leftline{\bf Acknowledgements}
\smallskip
{\eightrm\baselineskip9pt
\noindent The preparation of this paper was supported in part by
the National Science Foundation under grants IST-8201926 and MCS-8300984,
and by the System Development Foundation. `\TeX' is a trademark of the
American Mathematical Society.\par}
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\noindent
Received September 1983
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