I'm currently attempting to write a literate programming environment
for Perl, based on Knuth's WEB system for Pascal. To do this, however,
I'd like some pointers as to what is considered `tidy' or `acceptable'
source code. Please bear in mind that typeset formatting will be
different to source formatting that may be done by your favourite
editor; would we want a fixed- or proportional- width font? If
proportional, then the indentation would be specified in terms of
measured length, not characters. Should we use, for example, a
left arrow to signify assignment, like Knuth does. Is there a sensible
way to format regular expressions? (Putting reserved words in bold
font is a headache for me at the moment, but we're getting there.)

I've put a few .dvi files created using the current system (which
is just about to undergo a second major rewrite from scratch) up at
http://www.*-*-*.com/ ~pemb0468/webperl/

I'd appreciate comments on how they look and how people think they
ought to look. I know this might become a religious subject, and
that's not what I want. Just some kind of consensus would be nice.
Then again, this is Usenet.

Simon

--
Imbalance of power corrupts and monopoly of power corrupts absolutely.
                -- Genji

What sort of "pointers" are you seeking that go beyond whats
in the perlstyle manpage, or Joseph Hall's "Effective Perl"
book (a must read IMHO ;-)

Will you be making use of Perl's POD documentation format at all?
Why or why not? What about SDF (see http://www.mincom.com/mtr/sdf/)
--

 "And miles to go before I sleep."   |  3700+ WWW links on CS & Sw-Eng

        >snip<
: Please bear in mind that typeset formatting will be
: different to source formatting that may be done by your favourite
: editor; would we want a fixed- or proportional- width font?

        *FIXED*.  Proportional fonts should *NEVER* be used for code, ever.

: If
: proportional, then the indentation would be specified in terms of
: measured length, not characters. Should we use, for example, a
: left arrow to signify assignment, like Knuth does.

        Huh?  An example please.

: Is there a sensible
: way to format regular expressions? (Putting reserved words in bold
: font is a headache for me at the moment, but we're getting there.)

        See the /x regexp operator (man perlre).  It lets you break
        up regexps with embedded whitespace and comments.

: I'd appreciate comments on how they look and how people think they
: ought to look. I know this might become a religious subject, and
: that's not what I want. Just some kind of consensus would be nice.
: Then again, this is Usenet.

        :-)

--

BSD:  A psychoactive drug, popular in the 80s, probably developed at UC
Berkeley or thereabouts.  Similar in many ways to the prescription-only
medication called "System V", but infinitely more useful. (Or, at least,
more fun.)  The full chemical name is "Berkeley Standard Distribution".

Simon Cozens:

I'm reminded of a post I sent out to comp.programming.literate some years
back, when I first stumbled across Perl's POD support. I was so delighted that
a mainstream language had included a facility which most everyone was using
for embedding documentation within code and a programmatically-extractable
fashion. So I sent my note out, and closed with something like "only please
don't call it ``Literate Programming'' or nobody will want to do it". Very
very shortly thereafter lwall, who was kiboizing all of usenet for perl
references, followed up with "Call it ``Cultured Perl''". I assume he'd been
waiting for the straight line since he invented POD format. Maybe since he
first invented perl back in the mid-80s.

-Bennett