WEB
Encyclopedia
WEB is a computer programming
system created by Donald E. Knuth as the first implementation of what he called "literate programming
": the idea that one could create software as works of literature
, by embedding source code inside descriptive text, rather than the reverse (as is common practice in most programming languages), in an order that is convenient for exposition to human readers, rather than in the order demanded by the compiler.
WEB consists of two primary programs: TANGLE, which produces compilable Pascal code from the source texts, and WEAVE, which produces nicely-formatted, printable documentation using TeX
.
CWEB
is a version of WEB for the C programming language
, while noweb
is a separate literate programming tool, which is inspired by WEB (as reflected in the name) and which is language agnostic.
The most significant programs written in WEB are TeX
and METAFONT
. Modern TeX distributions use another program Web2C to convert WEB source to C.
Computer programming
Computer programming is the process of designing, writing, testing, debugging, and maintaining the source code of computer programs. This source code is written in one or more programming languages. The purpose of programming is to create a program that performs specific operations or exhibits a...
system created by Donald E. Knuth as the first implementation of what he called "literate programming
Literate programming
Literate programming is an approach to programming introduced by Donald Knuth as an alternative to the structured programming paradigm of the 1970s....
": the idea that one could create software as works of literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
, by embedding source code inside descriptive text, rather than the reverse (as is common practice in most programming languages), in an order that is convenient for exposition to human readers, rather than in the order demanded by the compiler.
WEB consists of two primary programs: TANGLE, which produces compilable Pascal code from the source texts, and WEAVE, which produces nicely-formatted, printable documentation using TeX
TeX
TeX is a typesetting system designed and mostly written by Donald Knuth and released in 1978. Within the typesetting system, its name is formatted as ....
.
CWEB
CWEB
CWEB is a computer programming system created by Donald Knuth and Silvio Levy as a follow up to Knuth's WEB literate programming system, using the C programming language instead of Pascal....
is a version of WEB for the C programming language
C (programming language)
C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....
, while noweb
Noweb
noweb is a literate programming tool, created in 1989–1999 by Norman Ramsey, and designed to be simple, easily extensible and language independent....
is a separate literate programming tool, which is inspired by WEB (as reflected in the name) and which is language agnostic.
The most significant programs written in WEB are TeX
TeX
TeX is a typesetting system designed and mostly written by Donald Knuth and released in 1978. Within the typesetting system, its name is formatted as ....
and METAFONT
METAFONT
Metafont is a programming language used to define vector fonts. It is also the name of the interpreter that executes Metafont code, generating the bitmap fonts that can be embedded into e.g. PostScript...
. Modern TeX distributions use another program Web2C to convert WEB source to C.