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The CWEB System of Structured Documentation by Knuth & Levy Recommended

ISBN: 0 201 57569 8       Publisher: Addison-Wesley       Pages: ?pp       Price: £19-95

Categories:   documentation     advanced c     writing solid code

Reviewed by Francis Glassborow in C Vu 7-4 (May 1995)

This is not the place to go into the whole issue of literate programming, but in recent times Knuth has moved everything across to C and CWEB is the C version of the tools. It consists of CWEAVE and CTANGLE. The source code for both is available by ftp. I wish I had the time to compile that source code for use on my machines. Having it would unlock so much more such as the excellent Graph Base material. I can understand why Knuth makes everything available as source code but it would be so nice just to load the programs and use them for a while.

This book must be about the shortest ever published - the main text is slightly under 11 quarto pages (I think I have the page size right.). It is then followed by 216 pages of appendices and index.

Somewhere I have all the source for CWEB (in C). Is there anyone who has the time and interest to compile it for their equipment? Is there anyone who can do this for a PC?

I would really love to publish a series on Literate Programming in C supported by source and executable for common platforms.

Surely this kind of project is something ACCU could undertake to the benefit of many.