I like parser combinators, but I think they obscure the formal definition of the language being parsed. There's something to be said for having a declarative sp

I like parser combinators, but I think they obscure the formal definition of the language being parsed. There's something to be said for having a declarative specification of what you're parsing. I used to feel similarly, but that was because I'd been introduced to parser combinators in languages that lacked the features to replicate what made them great in Haskell. Properly implemented, they can take on a very readable, declarative-like style. Over the weekend for instance, I threw together a JSON parser in Haskell using Graham Hutton's monadic parser library, and I found the result refreshingly clear and readable: https://gist.github.com/jarcane/025f5475418858bba8276f1dfcf215be https://gist.github.com/jarcane/025f5475418858bba8276f1dfcf2... With do notation and ADTs, the code comes out looking more or less pretty close to what it describes, and that reflectivity applies both to the reading and the coding. I simply describe the patterns in looking to match and which parts to pass on, and voila: a parser.