LaTeX, Python and Literate Programming

In my spare time (a couple of hours per weekend…!) I am implementing calcal, a Python version of calendrica-3.0.cl, the Common Lisp implementation of the calendars from N. Dershowitz, E. M. Reingold Calendrical Calculations, 3rd Edition. (In case you are interested you can find a preview in my github repo.)

At some point I decided to go Literate Programming using noweb. This is an experiment in the experiment but so far it has been a good choice because I can define all I need in the same place and generate documentation, source code (Python, shell scripts …) from the same source.

I also found something interesting (on a now disappeared blog https://usefreetools.blogspot.com): executing Python from within LaTex! I could use it to avoid to hardcode results in my doc and just calculate them on the fly…

The same blog was showing how to build LaTeX docs using SCons: I will defenitly use it; my Makefile isn’t that great nor easy to mantain.