[antlr-interest] Serious Bug when using BitSetgeneration

[Geir Ove Skjaervik]

Hello,

Are we supposed to take this kind of feedback seriously? You may make
fun of other peoples problems, but does this kind of feedback belong
here?

You clearly do not understand the nature of the problem, or you would
not have replied the way you do; and when you do not udnerstand, why
don't you refreain from replying?

a) Switching to 3.x is NOT an option after having written about 5000
lines of Parser and Tree Parser code

b) If it is a limitation, ANTLR should warn you about that. 

c) The workaround means avoiding BitSets alltogehter for ** everyone **.
As long as we (programmers and the ANTLR developemnt team) does NOT
understand the nature of the problem, then we do NOT know when this bug
strikes!

d) Avoiding BitSets all the time means two things: 
   i) Performance takes a big hit
   ii) Why are they there if all they can do is pose a BIG problem in
unknown situations




Geir Ove


Geir Ove

-----Original Message-----
From: antlr-interest-bounces at antlr.org
[mailto:antlr-interest-bounces at antlr.org] On Behalf Of Jim Idle
Sent: 18. november 2005 04:24
To: ANTLR Interest
Subject: RE: [antlr-interest] Serious Bug when using BitSetgeneration


 

________________________________

From: antlr-interest-bounces at antlr.org on behalf of Geir Ove Skjaervik


Jim Idle wrote:

> Hello,

> Just one more comment on this Bug. It is ** clearly ** a bug, since 
> ANTLR does work correctly when BitSets are NOT used.

Well, it could be just a limitation, perhaps catered for with a few
tweaks, or perhaps better addressed with efforts in the Antlr 3 space.

>I find it strange
> that this Bug  seems to be passed in almost silence: I would think it 
>to  be rather serious to have a "sleeping" bug that may come and bite 
>you  any time you encounter the right conditions.

> Terrence asked me to try to produce a small grammar example to try to 
> reproduce the problem. I will as soon as time on my project permits 
> it.

Hmmm - I thought you said it was a serious bug? Can't be THAT serious
can it? ;-) 

> BUT I would think it is equally IMPORTANT for the ANTLR team to try to

> hunt down this ** serious ** bug. It is nice that ANTLR 3.0 is under 
> development, but we sure need a strong ** core ** technology that 
> won't fail.

Well, the last time I was there I noticed that beer and pizza were
significantly more expensive in San Francsico than most other parts of
the world except Geneva. I am sure that donating a few vouchers for same
would make this bug very much more important. Remember that it is free
(for you anyway) and we should be careful to give out a bit of respect
for people's time and efforts given freely :-).

Jim