[antlr-interest] (unknown)

[atripp54321]

Neat tool!
This may sound crazy, but I've always thought
that a great addition to ANTLR would be a tool
that lets me draw a syntax diagram graphically,
and then generates the .g file from the graph.

I think what makes ANTLR (and similar tools) hard
for newbies is that you've got the ANTLR language/syntax
all mixed in with the target language syntax. A graphical
tool could potentially hide all ANTLR syntax from
the ANTLR user.

Just look at some simple .g code from a newbie's eyes:

constructorBody
    :   lc:LCURLY^ {#lc.setType(SLIST);}
            ( options { greedy=true; } :                
explicitConstructorInvocation)?
            (statement)*
        RCURLY!
    ;

Here, we have to know what all the symbols mean: ":", ";",
"^", "#", "(" and ")", "{" and "}" "?", "!", 
and how to put them all together. Wouldn't it be possible
to just draw a syntax diagram with special notation
(colors or shapes rather than symbols) to indicate the
functions of the "^", "!", "{...}" symbols?

After all, BNF-like languages aren't much better than XML,
and we all know humans should not be editing XML by hand :)

Just a thought.
Andy



 
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