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Explore a novel paradigm for program documentation through this 31-minute conference presentation from Onward! 2025. Learn about literate tracing, an innovative approach that uses annotated, concrete execution traces to explain how software systems work, bridging the gap between system experts and novices. Discover how this method complements traditional in-code comments and design documentation by providing global context with concrete connections to code. Examine TReX, an interactive and visual tool that creates literate traces guaranteed to be faithful to program semantics by construction. See practical applications of this approach through examples from major systems software including the Linux kernel, Git source control system, and GCC compiler. Understand how literate tracing addresses the growing challenge of communicating complex system behaviors in increasingly large and sophisticated computer systems, offering a new perspective on software documentation that combines the benefits of concrete execution examples with comprehensive system explanation.
