2. Introduction

2. Introduction

Interscript is a component of a new style of programming environment incorporating the ideas of literate programming and category theory. Literate programming was first embodied in significant code by Donald Knuth in a program called Web, to support publication of the sources for his TeX typesetting system.

The fundamental precept of literate programming is that documentation should not be written after software development, but be an integral part of it. A literate programming source is primarily a document in which source is embedded; the source is extracted by the literate programming tool by a process called tangling, while the file is typeset by a process called weaving.

Unlike traditional documentation, whether it be design specifications, or, code or user documentation, literate programming offers the opportunity for the documentation and software to remain synchronised because the two are lexically close and easy to maintain together. Furthermore, the published sources not only match the software exactly, but are sure to be complete.
2.1. Interscript