Re: gEDA: FNF: Netlist format for Confluence and Informal

[Thien-Thi Nguyen <ttn-at-NOSPAMglug_dot_org>]

Evan Lavelle <anti.spam1@dsl.pipex.com> writes:

   Why? We've now had 30 (40?) years of compiler-generator development 
   effort. Why use a form whose only purpose is to simplify human-generated 
   parsers, when it's so easy to do it properly?

structured expressions have been around a lot longer than compilers
(it's what compilers work so hard to produce and refine, internally :-).

   I'm not sure what your point is - are you suggesting a hand-coded
   parser?

no, i'm suggesting using a single pair of single-char delimiters to
express the hierarchy in the data format.  how the parser is coded is
your business (although following this suggestion would simplify the
parser somewhat so take it as a friendly gesture).

   My 2c on XML/emacs/lisp. Nothing in either XML or Lisp is remotely 
   relevant to what you need to do; just do what's natural. Nobody in their 
   right mind is going to start parsing your netlists using emacs or 
   prettifying their code using Mozilla. 

people hand-edit netlists all the time.  however, it is true that often
tools and toolsmiths in their hubris deny this reality.

thi