[antlr-interest] updated "antlr 2 bashing list"

[Robin Debreuil]

Well, I like it a lot already - have to say that first : ).

One thing I find strange is using exceptions for flow control in the
generated code. I prefer exceptions to just be used for things you aren't
expecting in code, probably that is just a style thing though. Just this way
they seem to be much like gotos with global variables for state...

For the C# version, it would be really nice to use Enums for all the tokens,
or better yet, categories of them. It makes debugging much easier, and the
whole thing becomes a bit more 'solid'.

Above all though, it would be great to have more error information
available, both in the grammars and when running the generated code. The
program itself is designed to facilitate building that kind of thing into
languages, so it seems kind of like the cobblers kids going without shoes.
Maybe restrict what is valid syntax in a grammar and catch more common
errors. For the generated code, maybe a debug version - where it can tell
you things like the statement that it couldn't get past etc. Maybe even
things like setting breakpoints on input files.. Probably that would be
hard, but with all the guessing levels, gotos, exceptions, etc, it can get
pretty hard to trace. I may be overlooking a few exisiting techniques here
though, I'm pretty new to it.

Regardless, it is a great tool - the above would only make it easier (I
think anyway) to do what is already pretty easy, considering...

Cheers,
Robin




> Folks,
>
> Keep that hate mail coming ;)  Thanks for all the words of
> encouragement also :)  I have updated the page to include your
> comments:
>
> http://www.antlr.org/blog/antlr3/antlr2.bashing.tml
>
> Terence
> --
> Professor Comp. Sci., University of San Francisco
> Creator, ANTLR Parser Generator, http://www.antlr.org
> Cofounder, http://www.jguru.com
> Cofounder, http://www.knowspam.net enjoy email again!
> Cofounder, http://www.peerscope.com pure link sharing
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