Why not use functional narrative form to document complex formulas? formula name: formula function: formula uses: formula returns: usually one line of text for each of those. I know, this comes from structured programming where no block of actual code is supposed to go above 50 lines and that for many people cramps their styles. It makes maintenance a little easier though.
On Mon, 5 Jul 2021, Tim Visher wrote: > On Mon, Jul 5, 2021 at 10:14 AM Eric S Fraga <e.fr...@ucl.ac.uk> wrote: > > > Sorry; I cannot help you directly. > > > > My rule of thumb is that if formulas are getting too complex to > > understand/recall clearly, it's time to use a proper programming > > language instead. The nice thing about org is you can have tables as > > inputs to and outputs of src blocks... > > > > My papers often have awk source blocks that process tables to generate > > statistics for some (numerical) experiments. > > > > Spreadsheets, org tables being an example of such, are brilliant tools > > for simple calculations but are pretty much "write only programming > > languages". > > > > I had never heard of using an org table as input into a source block. > That's really interesting. > > The OP also poses an interesting idea that I have occasionally wanted. I > have generally accomplished this by simply including the documentation > above or below the table. In other words just having human text around it > that says 'This =formula= bit is because of X'. > > But the idea of a multiline TBLFM syntax seems to be already be almost > supported. I was mildly shocked to find that this mostly works > > ``` > |---+---| > | a | 1 | > | b | 3 | > |---+---| > | | 4 | > #+TBLFM: @2$2=@-1*3 > #+TBLFM: @3$2=vsum(@I..II) > ``` > > Note that I don't need the usual `::` separation between formulas. Where it > breaks down is that I can't seem to reevaluate the whole table's formula by > whacking `C-u C-c C-c` anymore and, obviously, there's no syntax for adding > comments. Also I doubt that I'd be able to use any of org's keys for > editing formulas. I wonder how hard it would be to extend org's > understanding of the TBLFM to allow for this kind of syntax. > > Once you had it then adding a comment character to it should be very simple. > > -- > > In Christ, > > Timmy V. > > https://blog.twonegatives.com > http://five.sentenc.es >
