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I'm pretty sure the only reason people ever used parser generators is that it allows a language that vaguely resembles the formal description of the target lang
by PittleyDunkin 2y ago
I'm pretty sure the only reason people ever used parser generators is that it allows a language that vaguely resembles the formal description of the target language. I always found them very confusing to write, confusing to debug, and much less efficient than writing your own. It's actually pretty straightforward once you get the tokenization and lookahead working.
- pests 2y agoAgreed. Parser generators are a magic black box. Parsing is not too difficult, there is some actual computer science in some spots, but I think parsing should be a core complacency of a programming language to unlock full potential.
- capitol_ 2y agoA very very long list of CVEs disagrees with that parsers are "not too difficult".
- supriyo-biswas 2y agoBinary format parsing != Programming language parsing.
- Blackthorn 2y agoBinary formats are rarely context free.
- PittleyDunkin 2y agoAgreed, but there are different things being prioritized with each approach.
- debo_ 2y ago"core complacency" was an excellent typo in the context of this conversation.
- emptiestplace 2y agoIt's rather compelling even without the context. :(
- cleanerbob 2y ago[dead]