Re: Compiler Tools v. C

shepherd@schubert.sbi.com (Marc Shepherd)
Thu, 4 May 1995 12:20:56 GMT

          From comp.compilers
Related articles
Compiler Tools v. C johnf@cpsc.ucalgary.ca (1995-04-28)
Re: Compiler Tools v. C scott@INFOADV.MN.ORG (Scott Nicol) (1995-04-29)
Re: Compiler Tools v. C shepherd@schubert.sbi.com (1995-05-04)
Re: Compiler Tools v. C scott@INFOADV.MN.ORG (Scott Nicol) (1995-05-12)
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Newsgroups: comp.compilers
From: shepherd@schubert.sbi.com (Marc Shepherd)
Keywords: tools, design, comment
Organization: Compilers Central
References: 95-04-203
Date: Thu, 4 May 1995 12:20:56 GMT

Scott Nicol <scott@INFOADV.MN.ORG> () writes:
>Lex, on the other hand, is not very useful. The man page for Lex at
>Bell Labs has the following in the "BUGS" section:
>
> The asteriod to kill this dinosaur is still in orbit.


That's the first time I've encountered this 'spin' on lex. Do you
feel this way just about AT&T lex in particular, or about all "lex-like"
programs (including Flex)?


>If you want to anything the least bit tricky, it is worth it to spend a
>few hours and write a hand-crafted scanner. The code isn't difficult,
>and you gain speed, flexibility, and portability.


The authors of the O'Reilly book argue the opposite--that a hand-crafted
scanner will take you longer to write, may not be much faster, and will
almost certainly be buggier.


---
Marc Shepherd
Salomon Brothers Inc
mshepherd@mhfl.sbi.com
[At least one of the authors still feels that way, about flex at least. -John]
--

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