On 12/31/2010 10:36 AM, Robert McIntyre wrote:
This looks very cool, and the opportunities for fully exploiting the power of a cross-referenced book format are very appealing Might I suggest two possible improvements: 1) Colored syntax highlighting for all clojure code. 2) Cross references for every clojure symbol used in the code --- I'd love to be able to click on + anywhere in the document and have it bring me to the proper section in the book discussing the arithmetic operators.
I can't help much with the colored syntax. I am partially color blind so I don't find colors all that useful. Cross references occur naturally as part of the markup process. The current chunks are much too large but that will change. One useful side-effect of markup is that you can find where a symbol is defined and every use of that symbol. Of course, since everything is in one file you only need a text editor to find anything.
Page 971 looks like it still overflows a bit :) I agree that some of the java parts of clojure were definitely developed on very large screens.
Yeah, what I posted is only a snapshot to see if anyone else found the idea interesting. I don't think that most programmers have ever seen literate documentation so this may be their first exposure to the idea.
Thanks for starting on this; best of luck, Sincerely,
Thanks. I think that this is really useful in some contexts, especially where you're trying to bring new developers up to speed on a language. One problem I've found with open source is that once the original developer team leaves the project just dies. Another problem is that new developers will add "new" features that are already in the language elsewhere. Working with the actual source surrounded by an explanation of "why" the code exists and the ideas behind the code seems to me to solve both problems. The other problem is that clever code is hard to maintain even for the original authors. I got my own "dirt simple" code back after 15 years and, while I understood what the code did, I had no idea why it was there. Sometimes whole subsystems die because they are no longer used but nobody is able to remove the dead code because they don't understand it. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
