Re: Popularity of compiler tools, was LRgen

Jason Evans <joevans@gmail.com>
Mon, 7 Apr 2008 08:24:11 -0700 (PDT)

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From: Jason Evans <joevans@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2008 08:24:11 -0700 (PDT)
Organization: Compilers Central
References: 08-03-107 08-03-119 08-04-024
Keywords: tools
Posted-Date: 10 Apr 2008 23:25:26 EDT

On Apr 6, 8:25 am, an...@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl)
wrote:
> That seems to be a common problem for compiler tools. I think there
> are several reasons for this:
>
> - There are many tools on offer, and not that many compilers being
> developed (compared, to, say the relative numbers for compilers and
> programs that use them).


I think this is the single biggest issue for parser generators: only a
very small proportion of developers are even potential users of a new
tool. I made my own parser generator (http://www.canonware.com/
Parsing/) available over a year ago, and I was really surprised at how
little feedback I got. In retrospect, the most telling feedback was
that most of the queries were about the fundamentals of parsing,
rather than the specifics of my parser generator. So, the market for
parser generators is *tiny*.


Jason


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