[antlr-interest] Re: dfa-based lexers versus top-down antlr lexers

[Terence Parr]

Hi Jason,

Thanks for the thoughts. :)  I'll keep everyone up to date as I poke 
around. :)

Ter

On Wednesday, May 21, 2003, at 11:26  AM, Jason Osgood wrote:

> Hi Terence Parr-
>
>
> Sorry for the delayed reply.
>
>> I'd like thoughts also from people with *no* experience
>> using DFA-based tools like lex/flex.  Do ANTLR
>> lexers seem "natural"?
>
> I started with ANTLR, so don't know any better.  And the expression of
> a BNF in an ANTLR grammar seems straightforward.
>
> The only reason I'm learning about DFA and LALR now is because the
> interactive parsing algorithms are mostly built on top of lex/yacc.
> (I still don't know enough to apply the ideas to LL.)
>
>
> My needs are simple.  In designing a language from scratch, I have the
> luxury making it easy for both humans and tools.  In other words, when
> my ANTLR grammar got weird, I changed the language to make things
> simple again.  Hopefully I got the balance right.
>
> But your language translation stuff is a whole other world.  I don't
> envy you.  And while I consider "embedded" languages (e.g. SQL within
> JavaScript within HTML) to be a sign of failure, it's apparently
> unavoidable.
>
> So I encourage you to make the tools you need to make your own work
> easier.  The rest of us will draft off your lead. <grin>
>
>
> Cheers, Jason Osgood / Seattle WA
>
>
>
>
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>
>
>
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