[Axiom-developer] Re: allprose

[Ralf Hemmecke]

> typo in Makefile s/programms/programs/
> typo in Makefile s/environemnt/environment/

Thank you for that.

> \xALLPROSE{} expands to nothing
> \xAldor{} expands to nothing
> \xPerl{} expands to nothing
> \xNoweb{} expands to nothing

I don't understand. These commands are defined properly in
allprose.sty.nw. Just go to the index and click on the page number. That 
brings you directly to their definitions.

May I ask in which situations you realised this empty expansion.

> the axiom version of notangle fixes the problem of << in source code
> so it no longer fails. this is one of the patches that Norman Ramsey
> would not accept because I modified the C sources. It appears that
> you have a different solution. Please contact Norman to see if he'll
> incorporate your patch. If so, we can remove the patch from axiom.
> maybe we can even fix it to use the standard distribution.

Oh, I didn't know that your patch was about unbalanced << appearing in a 
pamphlet file. The problem is actually in the markup program so I have 
to filter the .nw file before it is handed over to markup. I've done 
this via perl.

> i still don't have it running but i continue to work on it.

I am happy about someone trying it out. It seems that I still have to 
work on the installation process. It is much too complicated.
I seriously consider to provide a second archive with all (most of) the 
additional software put into a nice directory structure together with a 
kind of installation script. But don't expect this anytime soon.
I first would need to hear about experiences of some volunteers who tell 
me where the installation process is not too simple.

> as you can see, i'm reading the .nw files

That's what they are made for. Tim, it was actually you who brought me 
into the business of trying out this literate programming style. I 
think, by now I quite like it. Now when I write some piece of code I 
always write some documentation with it explaining the general idea. And 
(very important) I immediately put some references (back and forth) to 
other code that has some relation to the code I am just writing. The 
latter really helps a lot if I look at my code at any later point and 
want/must modify it.

I do not yet consider ALLPROSE to be documented in a truely literate 
programming style. One still cannot read the documentation linearly in 
order to understand ALLPROSE. But I wanted to release it in order to get 
some feedback.

I hope there will be some more people trying it out.

Ralf