The Definitive ANTLR Reference

What Hacker News says

1. throwaway_pdp09Nov 2020
   Well, this is (one of my) areas so here goes. DSLs are a concept, not an implementation. As implemented they can vary from chained procedure calls to actual sub languages with lexers and parsers (and I tend to consider the latter to be 'proper' DSLs, but that's just my view).

   To have a 'proper' DSL I reckon you need two things, and understanding that a thing can and should be broken out into its own sublanguage, and the ability to do so. The first takes a certain kind of nouse, or common sense. The latter requires knowing how to construct a parser properly and some knowledge of language design.

   Knowing how to write a parser is not particularly complex but as the industry is driven by requirements more of knowing 'big data' frameworks rather than stuff that is often more useful, well, that's what you get, and that includes people who try to parse XML with regular expressions (check out this classic answer <https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open...> Edit: if you haven't seen this check it out cos it's brilliant).

   I think this reflects the fundamental problem in software development of the market's not knowing what's actually needed to solve real business problems.

   ++++

   Edit, some reading material

   https://www.amazon.co.uk/Language-Implementation-Patterns-Do...

   https://www.amazon.co.uk/Definitive-ANTLR-Reference-Domain-S...

   https://www.amazon.co.uk/yacc-Nutshell-Handbook-Doug-Brown/d...

   They're all worth investing the time in.

   Show morethread
2. breckNov 2020
   Yes, it walks your through it step by step. I have https://pragprog.com/titles/tpantlr2/the-definitive-antlr-4-... and at least 1 more of his, forget where it is. I would say it is ageless (at least, until something better than ANTLR comes along—ohm is promising but not sure what the latest is with that).

   "The Definitive ANTLR 4 Reference" is absolutely the most understated title I've ever seen in a book. It's really more like "The Book That Will Change How you Look at Programming Languages Forever"

   IMO anyway. I guess it depends on how much you've been exposed to parsers and grammars and compiler compilers already.

   Show morethread
3. CalChrisDec 2017
   Nothing on compilers.

     Dragon Book
     LLVM Essentials
   

   Nothing on machine organization and assembly.

     Computer Organization and Design
     ARM Cortex A72 Software Optimization Guide
     Intel® 64 and IA-32 Architectures Optimization Reference Manual
     The microarchitecture of Intel, AMD and VIA CPUs
   

   Parsing

     Language Implementation Patterns
     The Definitive ANTLR 4 Reference

   thread
4. CalChrisMar 2017
   I switched over to ANTLR 4. It is strictly superior to ANTLR 3. The listener approach rather than embedding code in the grammar is very natural. Separating leads to clean grammars and clean action code. Odd thing is that I was stuck on 3 because 4 didn't support C yet and then I just switched to the Java target in an anti-C pique. Shoulda done that awhile ago.

   TParr's The Definitive ANTLR 4 Reference is quite good. And so's this mega tutorial.

   https://pragprog.com/book/tpantlr2/the-definitive-antlr-4-re...

   ANTLR is my goto tool for DSLs.

   Show morethread
5. dchichkovAug 2013
   To anyone who haven't red "The Definitive ANTLR reference" by Terrence Par. I can highly recommend it. It is beautiful.

   http://www.antlr.org/wiki/display/ANTLR4/ANTLR+4+Documentati...

   thread
6. pellaAug 2011
   The Definitive ANTLR Reference: Building Domain-Specific Languages

   http://pragprog.com/book/tpantlr/the-definitive-antlr-refere...

   -- + --

   Language Implementation Patterns: Create Your Own Domain-Specific and General Programming Languages

   "Learn to build configuration file readers, data readers, model-driven code generators, source-to-source translators, source analyzers, and interpreters. You don’t need a background in computer science—ANTLR creator Terence Parr demystifies language implementation by breaking it down into the most common design patterns. Pattern by pattern, you’ll learn the key skills you need to implement your own computer languages." http://pragprog.com/book/tpdsl/language-implementation-patte...

   Show morethread