From: MikkelFJ <mikkelfj-anti-spam@...>
Date: 2002-09-17T00:31:15+09:00
Subject: Why are parser tools rarely used in ruby?

Why is it that all the ruby source I find in the Ruby (windows) distribution
has zillions of handwritten parsers: rexml xpath, rdoc, sgml-parser ?

It the same time noone has answered the question recently posted about
whether to use racc or rbison. I have personally briefly used racc and found
it very easy to use, but can't answer for rbison. It seems like these tools
are not in widespread use. Rockit should also be mentioned as Ruby parser
tool.

One explanation could be that it is comparatively easy to write a parser in
Ruby.

Another reason could be that using a compiler compiler requires an
additional build step and since Ruby don't generally use a build procedure,
this is a bit annoying.

Other reasons could be about error reporting, lack of knowledge about the
available tools, or lack of tool in typical distributions.

Actually Racc does not seem to be in the 1.6.7 Windows distribution - but I
recall it being in an earlier version - a cygwin issue?

So I just wonder - why are these tools not in more widespread use?

Mikkel