From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 109fba,df854b5838c3e14 X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public X-Google-Thread: 1014db,df854b5838c3e14 X-Google-Attributes: gid1014db,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,df854b5838c3e14 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: c2a192@ugrad.cs.ubc.ca (Kazimir Kylheku) Subject: Re: C/C++ knocks the crap out of Ada Date: 1996/03/15 Message-ID: <4ictacINN5gk@mayne.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 142995345 references: <00001a73+00002504@msn.com> <4iah20$p7k@saba.info.ucla.edu> organization: Computer Science, University of B.C., Vancouver, B.C., Canada newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++ Date: 1996-03-15T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <4icja9$1r92@saba.info.ucla.edu>, Jay Martin wrote: >>Lex and Yacc are proven utilities that work. > >Lex and Yacc are braindead crap along with C and Unix. Do they have an >option to output Ada?? Sorry, I don't know. I have heard of adaptations to other languages. I would love to try an alternate parser generator to Yacc (other than GNU Bison), but it is the only one which I can depend to ``always be there''. What does Ada have to do with this? If a parser generator outputs Ada code, does that make it valid in your eyes or what? >>The input file to Lex is far easier to debug and maintain than a hand-written >>lexical analyzer. >>Yacc makes you an efficient LALR(1) parser---all you do is specify a grammar >>and a few C snippet ``actions''! If it was any easier, I'd fall asleep at the >>keyboard. > >You have become and "idiot savant" at it, congratulations, >unfortunately the next guy might not reading your code. I wasn't >talking about needing a grammer, I was talking with about reading in a >simple table. Its stupid to bring in two tools with two more >"languages" to do something trivial that takes a page of normal code. The tools are not required once the code is distilled. They _are_ needed for its maintenance, though not absolutely essential. Your last sentence is an example of obsolete thinking. I could easily form all kinds of silly arguments based on the same form: ``It's stupid to do structured analysis, design and implementation when you can just sit down at the workstation and hack it out!''; ``It's stupid to re-use code when you can write from scratch!''; ``It's stupid to use a high-level language when you can code in assembly language'', and so forth. Let me guess, real programmers enter hexadecimal opcodes directly into memory! Did I detect Ada advocacy coming from you? I must surely have been mistaken... >>A lex generated scanner is far more robust and _faster_ than scanf(), >you twit, >especially if you use GNU flex -f to generate the scanner. >>I have written a test program in which I compared a flex scanner against >>scanf().... > >> System specific performance nonsense deleted. This was not very system specific. I doubt that the operating system and hardware could be reorganized in such a way that such a landslide performance difference could be reversed. Perhaps with compiler optimization of the scanf() routine, or a better scanf() implementation. >> Glowing accounts of the wonderfulness of Lex and Yacc deleted. Conveniently so for you. Deletion is not a form of refutation, however. It just means that you can't find a suitable way to falsify my claims about how these tools have helped me write reliable scanner and parser combinations in minimum time. Quite unlike your ridiculous claim that using Yacc is done for the sake of using Yacc and some sort of glory of computer science. Pure bullshit. Yacc gets the job done. Find me a parser generator that's better, and I will use it. I wouldn't mind one that can do canonical LR(1) rather than LALR(1), for instance. Also a parser generator that handles some form of attribute grammar would might also be useful to me in the future. You are obviously a crazed fanatic with a tenuous grip on reality. I bet the serious Ada programmers in comp.lang.ada are red with embarrassement due to their loose association with you. Hatred of Yacc, indeed! Boy, I ought to report you to some animal rights activists! By the way, there is no such word as ``wonderfulness''. Try ``wonders of ...''. --