5 ms·

Not sure if this is intentional or not but at first I thought this was something to do with Flex (the Lexer generator - as in one half of Flex and Bison). Somet

by throwaway2016a 10y ago

Not sure if this is intentional or not but at first I thought this was something to do with Flex (the Lexer generator - as in one half of Flex and Bison). Something that is even more confusing since the first graphic in the page contains a BNF document and talks about compiler generation. If Flex was a business with a trademark this would count as infringement without a doubt. Same type of product, same name.

jakobegger 10y ago
Flex is such a common name. Search for "flex" on the internet, and you'll find dozens of companies and products with the same name.
- krautsourced 10y ago
  flexlm also is one of the most common license management tools.
- Sir_Cmpwn 10y ago
  Yeah, but how many of them are involved in compiler development? I think this is in poor taste. I can't imagine that they're not trying to capitalize on flex's fame.
  - thedaniel 10y ago
    The name is a reference to Alan Kay's M.Sc thesis from 1968: https://www.mprove.de/diplom/gui/kay68.html https://www.mprove.de/diplom/gui/kay68.html
    - Sir_Cmpwn 10y ago
      Alan Kay's Flex quickly became Smalltalk while Flex (the lexer) spent the last 30 years doing its thing under that name. It might not be deliberate but it's definitely confusing and they definitely should have realized it would clash within the compiler development namespace. It's like making an HTML parser and calling it Chrome.
ffk 10y ago
There is a trademark on the Flex name, which I believe originally belonged to Adobe but was later transferred to the Apache Foundation: https://blogs.adobe.com/flex/2012/08/flex-trademark-assigned-to-apache-software-foundation.html https://blogs.adobe.com/flex/2012/08/flex-trademark-assigned...
edko 10y ago
The name "flex" itself was based on the name of the original Unix lexer-generator "lex", just like its sibling parser generator "bison" was a play on words of lex's parser generator sibling "yacc" (which stands for "yet another compiler compiler"). Fun fact: one of the original authors of lex was Eric Schmidt, now executive chairman of Alphabet.

jakobegger 10y ago

Flex is such a common name. Search for "flex" on the internet, and you'll find dozens of companies and products with the same name.

krautsourced 10y ago
flexlm also is one of the most common license management tools.
Sir_Cmpwn 10y ago
Yeah, but how many of them are involved in compiler development? I think this is in poor taste. I can't imagine that they're not trying to capitalize on flex's fame.
- thedaniel 10y ago
  The name is a reference to Alan Kay's M.Sc thesis from 1968: https://www.mprove.de/diplom/gui/kay68.html https://www.mprove.de/diplom/gui/kay68.html
  - Sir_Cmpwn 10y ago
    Alan Kay's Flex quickly became Smalltalk while Flex (the lexer) spent the last 30 years doing its thing under that name. It might not be deliberate but it's definitely confusing and they definitely should have realized it would clash within the compiler development namespace. It's like making an HTML parser and calling it Chrome.

ffk 10y ago

There is a trademark on the Flex name, which I believe originally belonged to Adobe but was later transferred to the Apache Foundation: https://blogs.adobe.com/flex/2012/08/flex-trademark-assigned-to-apache-software-foundation.html https://blogs.adobe.com/flex/2012/08/flex-trademark-assigned...

edko 10y ago

The name "flex" itself was based on the name of the original Unix lexer-generator "lex", just like its sibling parser generator "bison" was a play on words of lex's parser generator sibling "yacc" (which stands for "yet another compiler compiler"). Fun fact: one of the original authors of lex was Eric Schmidt, now executive chairman of Alphabet.