We should revisit literate programming in the agent era
2 days ago
- #org-mode
- #coding-agents
- #literate-programming
- Literate programming intermingles code with prose for better understanding.
- Historically used in Jupyter notebooks and Emacs Org Mode, but remains niche.
- Maintaining parallel narratives (code and prose) is cumbersome without agents.
- Coding agents (like Claude and Kimi) simplify literate programming by handling prose-code synchronization.
- Agents can manage tangling (code extraction) and keep documentation updated automatically.
- Literate programming may improve generated code quality by providing contextual intent.
- Org Mode's tight Emacs integration is a limitation; Markdown lacks necessary metadata.
- Agents could make large, narrative-like codebases practical by maintaining prose-code sync.