I read the question as the OP wanting to go through a didactic exercise in building a programming language from the ground up rather than building a DSL, in whi

I read the question as the OP wanting to go through a didactic exercise in building a programming language from the ground up rather than building a DSL, in which case, lexing and parsing is a fundamental concept to cover, among others. I agree with keeping it LL(1), but it may also be worth it for the OP to understand what LL(1) means. I agree parsing is not at all the most important thing to learn in language implementation, but it seems to me almost a necessary thing to cover in order complete one's education in the subject. To omit it would be akin to omitting a discussion of limits in a study of calculus.