History and philosophy Literate programming was first introduced in 1984 by Donald Knuth, who intended it to create programs that were suitable literature for human beings. He implemented it at Stanford University as a part of his research on algorithms and digital typography. The implementation was called "WEB" since he believed that it was one of the few three-letter words of English that had not yet been applied to computing. However, it resembles the complicated nature of software delicately pieced together from simple materials. The practice of literate programming has seen an important resurgence in the 2010s with the use of computational notebooks, especially in data science.
history and philosophy literate programming was first introduced in 1984 by donald knuth who intended it to create programs that were suitable literature for human beings he implemented it at stanford university as a part of his research on algorithms and digital typography the implementation was called "web" since he believed that it was one of the few three-letter words of english that had not yet been applied to computing however it resembles the complicated nature of software delicately pieced together from simple materials the practice of literate programming has seen an important resurgence in the 2010s with the use of computational notebooks especially in data science