A Second Generation Literate Programming Tool: LP++

To date a number of things have happened.

1. I prepared a proposal for a prototype as a project proposal for a team of CMPS115 students. Although the proposal ended up being too ambitious for the team project, it is a useful document for getting a sense of what the tool I'm planning should be.

   The html version only works with IE or Netscape 6, sorry. The conversion to html apparently uses some xhtml that makes Netscape 4 hang. It is best viewed inside of MSWord (sorry again - I couldn't get the links to behave exactly as I wanted in the pdf version of the file).

   • MSWord Version
   • HTML Version
2. I have submitted a grant proposal to the National Science Foundation. The proposal calls for one year of development on the tool with a team of 4 undergraduates and 1 graduate student (acting as team leader). Following the first year of development, the proposal calls for an experiment with using the tool in CMPS109. One group of students will use the tool and another will use conventional programming tools. The results will be compared in a number of ways, with a key component being maintainability. I will measure maintainability by having a group of graduate students attempt to modify the programs produced by the undergraduates. You can view the entire proposal by following this link.
3. I am planning to submit (before December 1st) a proposal to the IBM Scholars Program: Eclipse Innovation Grants. The draft of that proposal is also available by following this link.
4. I have made considerable progress with implementing a very rough prototype. The implementation is entirely in Java. Upon request I will provide interested parties with some demo code. I must emphasize that this is VERY incomplete. It is a long way from implementing the requirements listed in the prototype proposal for the CMPS115 students. The tool can be used to more effectively demonstrate the folding/unfolding idea in the context of literate programming, than the mock up in the CMPS115 proposal.

As you can see I do not currently have any funding for this project, but funding may be available in the future. The NSF proposal, IF funded, will fund one graduate student researcher for two years, including summer beginning July 1, 2003. The IBM program, IF funded, will fund one graduate student researcher for Spring 2003 through Fall 2003, including summer. I'm not sure when I will know about the NSF funding. The IBM program decision will be made before the end of December.

I am currently in New Zealand, but will be happy to correpsond electronically with anyone interested. If you are interested in working on this project please contact Charlie McDowell.