Kurt Nørmark ©
Department of Computer Science, Aalborg University, Denmark

Abstract Index References Contents

These slides is a presentation of Elucidative Programming given in Görlitz, Germany. The presentation was given December 14, 2005.

Figure. The location of Denmark in Europe

Where is Aalborg? Slide Note Contents Index References

Figure. The location of Aalborg in Denmark

Plan of this talk Slide Note Contents Index References

Program Understanding and Program Documentation Literate Programming Concepts and idea Problems Elucidative Programming What is it? The model behind it Tools Documenting program evolution Status and Conclusion

Introduction Slide Note Contents Index References

We start this talk with a view on two basic program comprehension approaches. We here distinguish between whether program comprehension has been written on before hand, or whether the understanding is going to be extracted from the source program.

Program comprehension plays a major role in any non-trivial software development effort "To program is to understand"

Two basic program comprehension approaches Prevenient/proactive The program understanding is formulated as a forethought before or during the development of the source program Posterior/reactive The program understanding is formulated as an afterthough following the completion of the source program. Here we want to make a distinction which represents when the program comprehension is dealt with relative to the time where it is actually needed. The prevenient approach represent the cases in which some documentation is explicitly written before it is needed. The posterior approach, on the other hand, represent the cases in which the comprehension is attempted to be extracted from the program, when it is needed typically in a late phases of the program life time.

Kinds of understanding Slide Note Contents Index References

There are many different ways to classify program understanding and program documentation. Here we present a classification of program understanding which focuses on the documentation needs before, during, and after the central development efforts.

System and program understanding can be classified in many different ways We hypothesize that several kinds understanding can benefit from the ideas of elucidative programming

A classification of program-related descriptions and discussion Proactive mental understanding Design and architectural issues Oriented towards the author or co-developers Process understanding Descriptions that keep the practical and everyday activities on track Diaries and logs Maintenance understanding Conveying relevant information from the developers to maintainers Best to write after the development is finished

Which kind of documentation Slide Note Contents Index References

We start with a few - but important overall observations concerning our approach and our work.

There are many kinds of documentation: analysis documentation, design documentation, interface documentation, internal program documentation, user-oriented documentation, ...

In this work we focus primarily on internal program documentation. Integrated documentation Addresses the connection between program and documentation Several possibilities will be explored

Our tools are probably useful in any situation, where there is a need to write about a program

Views on documentation Slide Note Contents Index References

There are many different views on documentation, including common attitutes that are reconfired among programmers to such a degree, that most of us belive they are true.

Many programmers are reluctant to read and write program documentation

Documentation of program understanding Programming requires understanding of both the problem and its solution We cannot afford to forget the understanding once established It is expensive to reestablish the understanding if its forgotten.

We see documentation as an investment We hypothesize that the investment is payed back during the life time of the program We call for a professional attitude

Integrated program documentation Slide Note Contents Index References

We will here explore the possibilities of integrating programs and written program documentation

There are several ways to integrate the source program and the documentation

The documentation is embedded in the program Conventional program comments The program is the main structure The program is embedded in the documentation Literate Programming The documentation is the main structure The program and the documentation are separated, but connected via links Hypertext approach The starting point of Elucidative Programming

Knuth invented literate programming in order to explain and publish his programs in articles and books

Characteristics of literate programming: Detachment of program explanation structure from program structure The proximity between program fragments and their explanations The pieces of program 'live in' the documentation The opposite approach of conventional program commenting

Literate programming is typically supported by tools in the WEB-family

An example of a literate program Slide Note Contents Index References

For those who do not have a background in literate programming we here show an example of a simple literate program. The program is in Danish, but it should nevertheless be possible to get a general understanding of the approach.

In order to be concrete we briefly present an example of a literate program and the source from which it is generated

References A literate Life Program in Pascal - NuWeb - in Danish An example of the literate program source program (section 5) - in Danish

Internal structure of a literate program (1) Slide Note Contents Index References

Internally, a literate program is made by a hierarchical program and a linear document structure

Figure. The internal literate programming structure.

Internal structure of a literate program (2) Slide Note Contents Index References

The tangle tool extracts and assembles the source program

Figure. The program as assembled from the WEB above.

The WEB tools for literate programming Slide Note Contents Index References

There are two classical WEB tools for literate programming. We here show the roles of these two tools.

There are two central WEB tools: weave and tangle

Figure. The 'classical illustration' of the processing done by the WEB tools tangle and weave.

Problems with WEB-like literate programming Slide Note Contents Index References

Elucidative programming is meant to be an alternative to WEB-like literate programming. Therefore it is natural to identify a number of problems with classical literate programming which we attempt to remedy in our variation of literate programming.

The Program is embedded in the documentation Only few programmers want to split their programs in fragments and to organize these as parts of the documentation Language mixing The mix of three languages in a single document is not attractive Documentation language, programming language, WEB interconnection language Reading and comprehension problems in the WEB-source files Extra level in error handling Error handling is more complicated because the errors need to be mirrored in the WEB source program Paper orientation Most existing tools are oriented towards printed paper presentation of the literate program

Despite these problems the original ideas and tools remain to be very interesting and attractive for skilled and motivated users

"To elucidate is to make clear or plain, especially by explanation" "To throw light on something complex"

Elucidative Programming Slide Note Contents Index References

At this place we introduce elucidative programming. We here describe a number of key properties of the documentation approach.

Elucidative programming is meant to be a variant of literate programming Elucidative programming remedies some of the identified problems with literate programming

Elucidative programming highlights: Leave the program "in peace" Does not impose any requirement on the organization of the program in files or directories Address existing abstractions from the documentation Does not rely on separately named program fragments User interface Present the program and the documentation side-by-side in an Internet browser Supported by the development environment Requires specialized editor functionality We will return to all of these items later in the presentation

Requirements Slide Note Contents Index References

The first paper we wrote about elucidative programming was focussed on a number of requirements. These requirements are listed on this page.

Target The internal documentation must be oriented towards current and future developers of the program Purpose The internal documentation is intended to address explanation which serves to maintain the program understanding and to clarify the thoughts behind the program Separation The program source file must be intact, without embedded or surrounding documentation Tools The programmer must experience support of the program explanation task in the program editing tool Chunking The program 'chunking structure' follows the main abstractions supported by the programming language Medium The documented program must be available in an attractive, on-line representation suitable for exposition in an Internet browser

An example of an elucidative program Slide Note Contents Index References

In order to be concrete we will here give an example of a literate program. The program is referred in the NWPER'2000 paper, which is being presented during these slides.

The first example is an artificial elucidative demo program The second example illustrates the development of a small program that converts a large integer, representing the number of seconds elapsed since January 1, 1970 to a conventional date and time structure

References Elucidator Demo The Time Conversion example

More examples of elucidative programs Slide Note Contents Index References

The examples illustrate a demo program in Scheme, a real life LAML tutorial based on Scheme, and two educational Java programs

Elucidative Scheme Programs The LAML Tutorial Elucidative Java Programs Java MIP example 1 Java MIP example 2

The elucidative programming model Slide Note Contents Index References

This page describes a number of important concepts behind the elucidative programming model.

Entities Named abstractions on the program side Sections and subsections on the documentation side A naming scheme that allows us to address the program entities from the documentation Relations A doc-prog relation which connects explanations with program entities. A prog-prog relation which connects applied and defined name occurrences A doc-doc relation which connects explanations across the hierarchical documentation structure Source markers Represent positions in a program which we want to address in the explanations Documentation bundle An aggregation of programs, documentation text, and processing parameters.

The source format of the documentation - Scheme Slide Note Contents Index References

When the programmer works with a literate program the source format of the documentation is of particular interest. This format is important because it constitute the words and lines actually written by the programmer. In addition, the programmer will spend much time reading parts of the documentation in this format. Therefore the properties of the format matters. This page is related to the Scheme elucidator only.

An specialized markup language is used for the overall structure, the documentation texgt, the relations, and the source markers HTML is used for additional markup purposes

Two different markup languages are supported: A terse, ad hoc markup language. Brief and easy to read Makes use of native HTML An XML-in-LAML markup language More voluminous Homogeneous Makes use of HTML-in-LAML

References The setup of the time example The documentation text of the time example The Demo XML-in-LAML source

Tool Overview Slide Note Contents Index References

There are three important tools in an elucidative programming environment. Of these, a standard Internet browser counts for one. The others are the editor used for programming and documentation, and the tool which produces the underlying browser format.

The elucidative programming environment for Scheme contains the following tools: An elucidator which processes the program sources and the documentation source An editor which is used for both programming and documentation authoring An internet browser which is used for presentation of the elucidative program

The elucidator plays the role of the literate programming weave tool In elucidative programming there is no need for a tangle tool

The elucidator tool Slide Note Contents Index References

The elucidator tool produces the HTML pages to be shown in a browser. In addition, the elucidator tool makes a number of data structures used by the editor to gain knowledge about the documentation bundle.

The elucidator is the tool that processes a documentation bundle in order to produce an elucidative program

Tasks of an elucidator: Abstraction Parses the documentation and the program Extracts knowledge about program and documentation entities Synthesis Generates the HTML pages with links that represent the three kinds of relations between entities

The Scheme Elucidator do both abstraction and synthesis statically Alternatively, the synthesis may be done dynamically by the web server.

The editor tool Slide Note Contents Index References

The editor tool for the elucidator plays a major practical role. It is important that the programmer can continue working in his favorite environment. We will assume that our programmers use Emacs. Therefore we chose be augment the Emacs text editor with elucidator support.

It is of major importance to provide for easy and flexible editor support of elucidative programming We have augmented Emacs with elucidative facilities

Design objectives: The editor applies a split-screen layout in the same way as the browser The editor's support of the programming language is available in non-changed form The creation of the doc-prog and doc-doc relations is nursed in particular The major navigation possibilities - as supported by the browser - are also present in the editor The editor keeps the documentation bundle together by a special marking of the involved buffers

The browser tool Slide Note Contents Index References

The browser tool of an elucidative programming environment is just a standard, modern Internet browser. On this page we emphasize the typical frame layout used by an 'elucidative browser'.

The browser tool is realized by an ordinary Internet browser

Characteristics of the browser The "T layout" of the browser window, supporting a side-by-side alignment of documentation and program

Figure. The basic frame layout of an Internet browser that presents an elucidative program

Reference The Time Conversion example

Tool Integration Slide Note Contents Index References

Tool integration is a key issue when two or more program development tools are used together. On this page we discuss integration issues of the tools in an elucidative programming environment.

The current integration of the editor and the elucidator is simple and rather primitive

Cooperation between the elucidator and the editor The elucidator abstracts information from the documentation bundle which the editor can read on demand The editor is always a step behind with respect to knowledge about the current documentation bundle The elucidator can be activated very smoothly from the editor

Mutual activation of the browser from the editor - and vise versa - would be a major practical improvement

Tool philosophy Slide Note Contents Index References

Here we will discuss possible and different tool organizations. We call it 'tool philosophy'. Our point is not to force the programmer into a specialized environment for authoring of program documentation. We go for documentation enabling of existing environments. In our experience, programmers are rather conservative, and most of them want to continue working in their favorite environments. There must be major advantages in a new environment in order for the programmers to shift.

Possible tool organizations: Provide a brand new tool with an embedded editing environment for elucidative programming The Dogma System Introduce a separate tool and augment an existing editor with knowledge about elucidative programming Typically a Unix and Emacs solution Include elucidative aspects into current integrated programming environments Long term goal? Actually tried out with the Java Elucidator and TogetherJ Why not make an Eclipse plugin?

Many programmers do not want to be forced into a new and specialized editing environment

Integration with LAML SchemeDoc Slide Note Contents Index References

LAML SchemeDoc is a traditional library interface extraction tool for Scheme

Integration between the Scheme Elucidator and SchemeDoc From SchemeDoc it is possible to navigate to a richly linked version of the underlying Scheme source program From the Scheme Elucidator it is possible to arrange for linking to SchemeDoc pages instead of linking to Scheme source pages

References A SchemeDoc page of the XML-in-LAML library Elucidator Demo

A broader perspective on the use of an elucidator Slide Note Contents Index References

Here we will list a number of potential areas which we expect can be supported by the elucidator.

Most documents that need to address program units or program details will be able to benefit from the ideas of elucidative programming

Documents with 'an elucidative potential': Diaries and logs Written code reviews and code walk throughs Program tutorials Design documents Maintenance documentation

Program Evolution Slide Note Contents Index References

How do we make best use of an up-to-date program and outdated documentation? How do we document the evolution of the program?

It is possible to process several versions of a source program together with one version of the documentation Automatic bookkeeping of fine grained program evolution steps New, deleted, moved, renamed abstractions Extensive crosslinking of program versions Possible to address both new and old versions of abstractions from the documentation Provides for documentation of the program evolution

References A demo of a versioned elucidative program A real life versioned elucidative program

Adds much more value to a program with (partially) outdated documentation

The Java Elucidator has been used by three programmers in Danish Java software house. This experiment was carried out by Max R. Andersen and Claus N. Christensen

Feedback: Elucidative Programming is applicable in industry The tools were addapted - but they probably need improvements Problem with two representations (development, browser). Abstraction requires that the program can be compiled A group communication potential was revealed Not easy to capture and represent verbal communication

Industrial quotes Slide Note Contents Index References

"Elucidative programming is a paradigm which fits the lightweight process we use" "I believe that if we did not have such an Elucidator tool, then in the best case this would be scribbled down on a piece of paper, which would eventually be scrumpled up" "If I was to write the documentation completely isolated from the source code - well then it would have been completely useless - so it has to be done on the source code in some way" "At first it feels like: this takes time. But I do not think this is necessarily the case" "This is not end user documentation, and it is not polished analysis and design. It is actually very intimate, so on that set it reminds me a lot of this diary I have written from time to time" "It is probably something you has to integrate in the process... to get it on your mind, as a daily activitiy, as a natural part, right?" "I do not dare to mess with this, but I can always make a note about it - if I one day want to change something"

Contributions: A renewal of the tool ideas for literate programming A serious attempt to present programs and their internal understanding on the Internet Status A complete and operational prototype of an elucidative Scheme environment exists An experimental and operational prototype of an elucidative Java environment environment exists

References elucidator.sourceforge.net http://www.cs.auc.dk/~normark/laml/

The Elucidative Programming Home Page http://www.cs.auc.dk/~normark/elucidative-programming/ The DOPU Home Page Software Quality through Documentation of Program Understanding http://dopu.cs.auc.dk

These slides are available from the elucidative programming home page Both the Scheme Elucidator and the Java Elucidator are free and open software

Elucidative Programming
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