5 ms·

"Extremely complex grammar, makes barrier to entry for implementation much higher" Compared to... what?

• regularfry 14y ago
  The average, or even more-complex-than-average, alternative language. He's right, the grammar is a complete pig.
  • darrencauthon 14y ago
    Example? I don't understand what is meant by this.
    • batiste 14y ago
      Python grammar http://docs.python.org/2/reference/grammar.html http://docs.python.org/2/reference/grammar.html Ruby grammar is hard to find but there it is http://www.ipa.go.jp/osc/english/ruby/Ruby_final_draft_enu_20100825.pdf http://www.ipa.go.jp/osc/english/ruby/Ruby_final_draft_enu_2...
      • sepeth 14y ago
        It seems that Ruby uses GNU Bison: http://svn.ruby-lang.org/cgi-bin/viewvc.cgi/trunk/parse.y?view=markup http://svn.ruby-lang.org/cgi-bin/viewvc.cgi/trunk/parse.y?vi... It is not so clear for documentation purposes, but grammar rules are in between 850-4988 lines. File/Line size does not tell much about Grammar complexity, but anyway, the whole parse.y file is bigger than cpython/Parser directory. BTW, Ruby's parse.y file is just the input to Bison.
      • ch0wn 14y ago
        One of my favorite things about Python 3 is that the grammar actually got smaller: http://docs.python.org/3/reference/grammar.html http://docs.python.org/3/reference/grammar.html It's only three lines, but still.
    • wmoxam 14y ago
      What is meant is that Ruby is difficult to parse compared to most languages. By comparison Lisp is easy to parse
    • kyllo 14y ago
      When he says the complex grammar is a barrier to entry for implementation I think he is referring not to the difficulty of writing code in Ruby, but to the difficulty of writing a Ruby interpreter.