Re: Debian coding style?

[Julian Gilbey <J.D.Gilbey@qmw.ac.uk>]

> 7. Comments : Please comment your code, it makes everyone's life easier.
> Comment major

It would be extremely interesting and valuable if the code were to be
written using a Literate Programming tool.  It takes a bit longer to
write, but in my little experience of using such things, the results
were well worth it.  The code is more readable, more easily
maintained, more easily understood, and various other miscellaneous
advantages.  But the greatest advantage is that you have to really
understand the code you are trying to write before you write a
literate program, and that makes for really good code.

Have a look at the comp.programming.literate newsgroup, and probably
Levy/Knuth's CWEB or Marc van Leeuwen's CWEBx.  (I can give you URLs
for those if you want.)  Requires an extra preprocessor step, but the
results are well worth it.

   Julian

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  Julian Gilbey, Dept of Maths, QMW, Univ. of London. J.D.Gilbey@qmw.ac.uk
             Debian GNU/Linux Developer.  jdg@debian.org
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