Re: Beyond literate programming...

[cat2014]

I have a bit of a graphics background (a major that was 1/2 computer science & 1/2 photography), but I don't really think that relates too much to this. while I think that your idea of graphically illustrating a program is interesting, I don't really think that would contribute that much to a program.

I've seen programs diagramed as flowcharts illustrating the different steps a program takes while executing, which is certainly useful for some. It's not as good, though, as a good design for your program. Good abstraction, elegant algorithms, and well written code will, in my opinion, do far more to make a program easy for someone other than the original author to understand than all the flowcharts in the world. Those same 3 things are pretty much my only criteria for the beauty of a program.

Personally, I think that stuff like tux poster is ok, but not that pretty to look at. I'd rather judge how beautiful code is by 1 set of standards & how beautiful a illustration or painting is by a completely different set of standards. I know a lot of stuff has tried to merge the two (like the antitrust movie desktop wallpapers) but it seems silly to me. -- cat