[Axiom-developer] Re: [Axiom-mail] Re: noweb

[Gabriel Dos Reis]

root <address@hidden> writes:

| > As you can see, document insists on LaTeXing a file, which, as I said,
| > when in a design-code-build-test mode, I'm not interested in.  It just
| > wastes my time.  I rather have a separate [hase for building .dvi
| > files than trying to conflate everything together.  Maybe that mode
| > will be only for developers, but then document is not my solution.
| 
| i work in a literate style all the time now. every few lines i change
| i completely notangle-compile-test-noweeave-latex-xdvi as a single
| process. that way i know that the program still works, still TeXs, 
| and the code and text are in sync.

I think you misundertood.  The issue is not that of removing TeXing.
The issue is that of *delyaing* TeXing to another phase.

The TeXing is pointless when it is not needed.

| literate programming is a fundamental change in the way one thinks.
| programs are written for people, not machines so TeXing the file is primary.

By now, I think I know that psaulm by heart :-)

[...]

| surely you can't be suggesting that people still write naked code files....

And surely, I'm not suggesting that; right?

| you are, in fact, working as a developer so i'd hope that all of your
| new makefile machinery is pamphlet files.

they are.  What I'm saying that I work in various modes -- just like
various people work different.  They are modes where the TeXing is
just a pure waste of time for no reason.

In another mode, where full build is necessery to check that the
system is working, TeXing is mandatory.  No single size fits all.

| and the design principles
| should come first, as in the top level Makefile so the next generation
| can follow the religion.  so why wouldn't a greatly improved
| 'document' command be primary? 

because, it is secondary.  When I'm in a position where I'm satsified
with the build system, I will at how document can be improved to do
what it should be doing with the build system.  document is not an end
in itself.  It is tool.  I need to explore the landscape before I know
how to manufacture the tool to suit my needs.

| a two-pass process would allow a latex typo to stop the system build
| very late in the process whereas it logically should occur the first
| time the file is used. 'document', with the appropriate options,
| should completely handle the file, no?

TeXing and compiling SPAD, C, or LISP are two aspects of checking that
source files we check in the repository are "correct".  At the moment
they are entangled.  I'm saying that that entaglment ignores the
important fact that at various stages of development not all two
aspects need to be done simulatenously at the same time.  However,
they must be done before modification happens in the repositories.

-- Gaby