[X3D-Ecosystem] API documentation as a running program

[John Carlson]

Along the same lines as Knuth’s vision literate  programming, but diverging
from typical models of language servers and IDEs, I propose that the API
documentation becomes the interface to the running program; instead of an
LLM manipulating code, it first manipulates the documentation, then
executes the documentation, not the code itself.  Instead of the code being
primary, the documentation is the primary interface to the running
program.  I feel this might be along the lines of Oberon/Oberon2 by Wirth,
but it’s been too long since I looked at it.

What does this mean for X3D?  It means that the specification becomes
interactive, kind of like Berner-Lee’s browsers that allowed WYSIWYG
editing, but as one is interacting with the specification and a scene-graph
at the same time, through extensions to the documentation, like actual
parameter value editing and executing functions while stepping through
documentation (we might start with X3D scene access interface (SAI)
documentation).

So instead of coding programs, we are writing and running documentation.

This seems like the way forward in this increasingly LLM environment.

This is different than running pseudocode, it’s more like running
documentation with demonstration.

Whether I personally can make this a reality is doubtful.

John
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