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Date: Sat, 29 Mar 2008 17:28:36 +0300
From: "Alexei Fedotov" <alexei.fedotov@gmail.com>
To: dev@harmony.apache.org
Subject: What should we choose for Harmony: JavaCC or AntLR? Was: Google
 Summer of Code and Harmony
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Hello, Aleksey,

This is a good question indeed. Currently both popular parser
generators, i.e. JavaCC and ANTLR, are used in Harmony. We have to
decide which one is the preferable one for your project and overall. I
believe people who have some experience may help us to decide what
suits RTF parser and Harmony better. For your application you may just
note that you are collecting arguments to choose one generator from
two to be most applicable for Harmony instead of naming the only one,
and list the arguments you have already collected.

The licensing of both generators is acceptable. I have heard recent
talks about incompatible change of AntLR license, and cannot confirm
that. It seems that AntLR 3.0 uses conventional BSD license [1].
JavaCC has a proprietary origin [2], but Sun does not claim its rights
for this generator.

There was a conflict between ANTLR from our boot class path and the
one from Dacapo benchmark. I don't think this should be a problem for
RTF parser: one can load classes into another class loader. Vladimir
Beliaev, Paulex and Alexey Varlamov have to say more about this [3].
>From the other side people said that ANTLR provides more
understandable syntax that JavaCC [4], and AFAIK your mentor devoted
his university studies to ANTLR.

Alexei, all, do you have a parser generator preference?

[1] http://www.antlr.org/license.html
[2] http://markmail.org/message/v62n2jt7hvb234fi
[3] http://markmail.org/message/ja64toonfbo26yz5
[4] http://www.theserverside.com/news/thread.tss?thread_id=45464#233154


On Sat, Mar 29, 2008 at 2:01 AM, Aleksey Lagoshin <ayzen.quwe@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks for links and additional information.
>
>  I noticed that CSS parser is created by JavaCC. As far as I know there is
>  another one parser generator - ANTLR. So the question is: which tool is more
>
>  preferred/better JavaCC or ANTLR?
>
>
>  2008/3/28, Tim Ellison <t.p.ellison@gmail.com>:
>
>
> >
>  > Alexei Fedotov wrote:
>  > > Hello Aleksey,
>  > > That's great that you appeared on the list. That is nice to chat on
>  > > GTalk, but the list is preferred. People tend to think thoroughly
>  > > before sending their letters, so the communication become more
>  > > thoughtful and transparent. Please, don't hesitate to ask questions on
>  > > the list: UK guys provide us an object lesson in English courtesy
>  > > here.
>  >
>  >
>  > LOL, yeah, not like those brash American-types ;-)
>  >
>  >
>  > > I'm happy that you are ok with RTF editor task. From mentor's FAQ it
>  > > reads that getting two dependent projects accepted is harder than
>  > > different projects.
>  >
>  >
>  > I think we just need the grammar, look at [1] for the CSS grammar.
>  >
>  > We already looked at one [2] contribution for RTF but the license does
>  > not allow us to incorporate it into Harmony.  We need an equivalent to
>  > that (but don't derive it from this version).
>  >
>  > [1]
>  >
>  > http://svn.apache.org/viewvc/harmony/enhanced/classlib/trunk/modules/swing/src/main/java/common/org/apache/harmony/x/swing/text/html/cssparser/CSSGrammar.jj?view=markup
>  > [2] http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/HARMONY-3898
>  >
>  >
>  > Regards,
>  >
>  > Tim
>  >
>
>
>
>  --
>  Thanks,
>  Aleksey
>


-- 
With best regards,
Alexei