Mark Slagell <ms / iastate.edu> writes:

> 1. a "literate mode" that assumes all lines in a script are comments
> unless the first column is a special character (Haskell uses '>').

This is an interesting concept. It's interesting because it assumes
that the source code is not readily understood, and that therefore
I'll be needing to write more comments that source to explain myself
(otherwise why make the source code harder to type than comments?)

That might be true for some languages (APL springs to mind). It might
be true for Haskell (although in general it seems pretty
readable). But I don't think it is true of Ruby.

Ruby programs read pretty well--there's not much about them that's too 
obscure, and with well chosen method and class names, a Ruby program
pretty much documents itself. Comments can be reserved for documenting 
architectural level decisions.

So I'm not sure that adding this kind of facility helps much. Could
someone convince me?


Thanks


Dave