interscript:developers needed to take over project

[John Max Skaller]

please reply to skaller at ozemail.com.au
(I don't read this newsgroup, and the reply-to address is fake)

For some time now -- over 5 years -- I have been using the 
interscript literate programming and document generation tool 

http://interscript.sourceforge.net

for all my programming tasks, both commercial and personal.

I no longer have time to do more than cursorary maintenance
on this project, and I'm looking for some developers to take it over.
This program is written entirely in Python. 
If you're interested please mail me.

WHAT IT DOES.
-------------

Interscript allows you to package several program files in 
a single file, for example C header and implementation files.
You can also include documentation. The basic operation
is called tangling, which just extracts the program files, 
whilst the advanced operation is called weaving, which typesets
all the documentation .. including a full listing of the program
sources.

Interscript is unique in that the typesetting and extraction
commands are arbitrary Python scripts. It can therefore be used
to generate both code and documentation. You can view an interscript
source as a Python program with very long embedded strings
that's used to print out program and documentation files.

Interscript has dedicated tanglers for typesetting Python and
a number of other languages (including C, C++, Java, Perl ..).
Tanglers are plug-and-play .. you can make new ones by just dropping
a file into the right directory.

It also has plug-and-play weavers for plain text, LaTeX2e, flat HTML, and
a cross linked HTML multipage web. All formats can be generated
simultaneously, and in addition for any set of native languages.

I personally make good use of the facilities to integrate
test suites with source codes, as well as embedding all 
make scripts in interscript, usually as Python script.
[Make sucks .. Python is better :]

The basic packaging feature is that you can distribute complex
program sources as a small number of plain text files, and then
extract sources, build directories, run tests, etc, all with
a uniform distribution format. Yes I know Python has distutils,
but this system is language and platform independent -- its for
C and C++ codes as well as Python (for example).

The central core of this system has been executed millions
of times without problem. In addition I recently made a few mods
so it now works with the psyco accelerator. There are a couple of bugs
in the dependency checker, but the major work now required is:

	* upgraded support for syntax colouring non-python codes
	* upgraded widget/format controls (it does simple
		tables, but can't include pictures ..)
	* rewrite of the codes to be more efficient and more modern
	* a comprehensible manual
	* anything else you want

In addition, with a little design, the weaver and tangler modules
could become part of the standard Python distribution, as general
purpose typesetting components (with a common interface ..).

The whole program is built as a Python package with a 10 line
program harness to call the main subroutine.