| [ what's new ] [ project ] [ language ] [ alpha prototype ] [ examples ] | |||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
|
|
| ||||||||||||||
|
PROJECT |
I'm starting this in conjunction with the coding effort for the open-source workflow toolkit.
Since the wftk is my first open-source project (and this will be my second) I feel as though it should be documented to
a much higher standard than my earlier work, which has never been for public consumption. I've always commented fairly
carefully, but open source should do better than that. Design decisions should be documented and so forth. You know the
drill. If you're not familiar with literate programming, by the way, please read my introduction
to the topic and maybe follow some of the links. Worth your while.
At any rate, the first run at this will be lpml-alpha, which is a very minimal Perl script which will do very basic tangle and weave. (Tangle and weave are not considered separate operations in this system, but I still talk about those aspects of processing as though they were.) LPML is financially supported by no-one. If you think you want to send me money or something, I'm sure something can be arranged. Otherwise, if you want to use the beast, feel free. It will be available under the GNU license very soon, and other licensing arrangements can be discussed, of course. More on that when I get something to show, which should be relatively soon, as I feel the Muse on me.
| ||||||||||||||
|
|
The XML I'll use for this effort (at least the first time around) will be rather simple; it's the result of maybe
five years' thought about literate programming and why I do and don't like it, combined with my sudden recent plunge
into XML in the framework of the wftk project. XML is cool, really cool. The more you think about it, the more you
wonder why you spent all those years working without it -- I have an introductory topic, of course,
but it needs updating because I wrote it before I did much with XML. Months ago.
Anyway, here is the definition of the language, and at some point I may write a valid DTD for it. For the time being, it's sort of bastard XML instead of real live XML, and I don't really care. So there. May 2000 -- I have, however, introduced some basic little XMLish tags which will transform into HTML, so that lpml.xml now is valid XML, for instance. But I still haven't written a DTD because I don't need one at the moment and I have too much else to do. Eventually I'll be working with a DTD-driven XML editor, and at that point I'll surely write a DTD.
| ||||||||||||||
|
|
LPML alpha is a prototype Perl script. It has lots of limitations, up to and including
the fact that it really doesn't parse XML all that well, but it does take an XML-like
source code, tangle and weave it, and produce results. Of course, the only thing I've
used it to produce is itself (and that was rife with meta-confusion!) but I hope
that will change soon. (May 2000 -- and in fact I've used it on the example
litprogs below, and a couple that aren't on that list even. It's starting to be a usable
tool. Still needs a lot of work, but I'm finding it quite useful in the day-to-day.)
Go look at it, and even download it and give it a whirl if you want to give me a little feedback. I'd like to hear what you have to think. It's just a taste of what's to come, I hope.
| ||||||||||||||
|
EXAMPLE LITERATE PROGRAMS |
| ||||||||||||||
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.