Re: Parsing Expression Grammar

Hans-Peter Diettrich <DrDiettrich@compuserve.de>
10 Sep 2005 12:40:47 -0400

          From comp.compilers
Related articles
[5 earlier articles]
Re: Parsing Expression Grammar owong@castortech.com (Oliver Wong) (2005-09-03)
Re: Parsing Expression Grammar pohjalai@cc.helsinki.fi (A Pietu Pohjalainen) (2005-09-07)
Re: Parsing Expression Grammar paul@highpersoft.com (Paul Mann) (2005-09-07)
Re: Parsing Expression Grammar wclodius@lanl.gov (2005-09-10)
Re: Parsing Expression Grammar cfc@shell01.TheWorld.com (Chris F Clark) (2005-09-10)
Re: Parsing Expression Grammar gneuner2@comcast.net (George Neuner) (2005-09-10)
Re: Parsing Expression Grammar DrDiettrich@compuserve.de (Hans-Peter Diettrich) (2005-09-10)
Re: Parsing Expression Grammar paul@parsetec.com (Paul Mann) (2005-09-11)
Re: Parsing Expression Grammar paul@parsetec.com (Paul Mann) (2005-09-11)
Re: Parsing Expression Grammar DrDiettrich@compuserve.de (Hans-Peter Diettrich) (2005-09-14)
Re: Parsing Expression Grammar gneuner2@comcast.net (George Neuner) (2005-09-14)
Re: Parsing Expression Grammar Meyer-Eltz@t-online.de (Detlef Meyer-Eltz) (2005-09-14)
Re: Parsing Expression Grammar cleos@nb.sympatico.ca (Cleo Saulnier) (2005-09-17)
[16 later articles]
| List of all articles for this month |
From: Hans-Peter Diettrich <DrDiettrich@compuserve.de>
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Date: 10 Sep 2005 12:40:47 -0400
Organization: Compilers Central
References: 05-09-009 05-09-023
Keywords: parse, design, comment
Posted-Date: 10 Sep 2005 12:40:47 EDT

Paul Mann wrote:
>
> "Chris F Clark" <cfc@shell01.TheWorld.com> wrote in message
> > But, as a potential language designer, you need to think long and hard
> > about why you want to create a language which has no LL(1) grammar.
>
> Answer: Readability for human's sake.


Do you really think that humans prefer harder to "parse" languages?
Lookahead and backtracking affect humans as well as programs.


> Why constrain your language to LL(1) when LALR(1) tools are available?


Why write small and fast programs when users have so much memory and so
fast processors?


Sorry, I don't understand your opinion :-(


DoDi
[Stuff that's easy for computers to parse isn't always easy for people to
read or write. The classic example is Pascal vs. PL/I semicolons, where
Pascal's separator semicolons are syntactically elegant but quite error
prone. -John]

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