Multilingual programming: Coordinating programs, user interfaces, on-line help and documentation

The high cost of software is not due to the difficulty of coding, but in recoding and redocumenting software. This can be better understood when one considers how many expressions of the same ideas must be constructed and coordinated. Program code and comments, user interface and on-line help, and a variety of off-line documents, all must be consistent. A solution to the coordination problem is presented in this paper. Multilingual programming is a method of developing software that uses a database of information to generate multiple target languages like commented program code, user interface languages, and text formatting languages.