Re: is lex useful? Or how about these other tools...

Dan E. Kelley wrote:
>
> Although all the books suggest that lex is a good thing,
...
> why isn't it used?




I've been looking at compiler tools for a few weeks now and
I'd rather like an answer to your question as well. I would
also like to add a bit to it...
Which is the better system of compiler tools :
pccts
lex/yacc (flex/bison/byacc/...)
muskox
visual parse++
eli
txl
Any other reasonable ones that I missed?


For me, I'm evaluating these tools for writing my first compiler
(translater) and I'm don't really care speed of execution - I'm
much more concerned with getting the translater written and
running in a small amount of time with a small amount of effort
while retaining great amounts of flexibility in the output (I'm
translating PL16 to C and the C code should be recognizable as
having come from the PL16 so that the present maintainers will
still be able to maintain what is produced).


Some of my own comments on the question:
lex/yacc et al :
wide knowledge base (alot of users)
some later person viewing my code wouldn't need a special
formation just to figure out how to use the tool
(though the syntax of lex/yacc isn't really readable).
It would be nice to have just one file that did everything...
What's up with all of those files, anyway?
pccts :
I was ready to go with pccts - it seems like a pretty good
integrated system. The syntax is just ebnf - I can
deal with that... Future versions commercial?
No longer developped? Is it as integrated as it seems?
How will those coming after me deal with the code?
muskox :
It doesn't look like it suits my needs. First I have to figure
out how to use it myself and then so would anyone coming
after me... Are those objects going to help or hinder
me?
visual parse ++ :
Um, what does it do? Very thin documentation... Pretty colors
;) But seriously... The tutorial is just to show
you pretty colors and tells you nothing about
producing code. How is their Unix interface? I know
that I said that speed wasn't an issue but the test
files that I ran on this baby _crawled_.
eli :
Debugging. Cool. Objects. Lots o' doc (but lots o' self
praise taking up lots o' place in said doc). Really
quite large (on an SS20 I'm still compiling it 45
minutes later... this was not the case with any other
tool that I picked up... might this mean that it is
more complete - with better error handling or any other
similar thing?).
txl :
Documentation? Never heard of it... Seems like it could maybe
be interesting but the doc is pretty darned thin (you
do a download of the demo version and you get a lib and
nothing else). Seems object oriented. Is is integrated?
Is it easy to use?


Thanks!
Charles Witherup
inpact5@clr34el.der.edf.fr
--

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