Looking for champion - std.lang.d.lex

[Nick Sabalausky]

"bearophile" <bearophileHUGS at lycos.com> wrote in message 
news:ia6a0h$nst$1 at digitalmars.com...
> Nick Sabalausky:
>
>> I've taken a deeper look at Spirit's docs:
>
> I have not used Spirit, but from what I have read, it doesn't scale (the 
> compilation becomes too much slower when the system you have built becomes 
> bigger).
>

I think that's just because it's C++ though. I'd bet a D lib that worked the 
same way would probably do a lot better.

In any case, I started writing a comparison of the main fundamental 
differences between Spirit and Goldie, and it ended up kinda rambling and 
not so just-the-main-fundamentals. But the gist was: Spirit is very flexible 
in how grammars are defined and processed, and Goldie is very flexible in 
what you can do with a given grammar once it's written (ie, how much mileage 
you can get out of it without changing one line of grammar and without 
designing it from the start to be flexible). Goldie does get some of that 
"flexibility in what you can do with it" though by tossing in some features 
and some limitations/requirements that Spirit leaves as "if you want it, put 
it in yourself (more or less manually), otherwise you don't pay a price for 
it."

I think both approaches have their merits. Although I haven't a clue which 
is best for Phobos, or if Phobos even needs either.