In the context of this discussion the concept is a NetBeans editor module generator, in which we auto-code all (or as much as we can) of the supporting files necessary to create a NetBeans editor plugin for the users' new language. In that context additional jars shouldn't' be an issue, but of course if we're going to go to all of that time and effort then it should be able to emit code for other purposes.
With that in mind I have other applications that are probably already suffering from bit rot. I haven't had to write a grammar in quite a while, and was unfamiliar with ANTLR so I had to do some reading. After browsing a few web sites I like that ANTLRs output looks cleaner, can target multiple languages, and that there appear to be significantly more (and more robust) tools already available. I found an old JavaCC branch supporting C/C++ targets but it doesn't appear to be supported. I didn't look into if the other ANTLR target languages require additional libraries, or had time to explore how much Netbeans support is already available. I hope to find time this summer to try writing a new parser (maybe just a toy), but so far in general ANTLR appears to be a better choice if we're going to develop an editor generator. Peter ________________________________ From: Bertrand Delacretaz <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, June 17, 2017 2:52 AM I tend to agree but a difference that can be important depending on the context is that JavaCC doesn't have any external runtime dependencies, whereas ANTLR requires a few jars. -Bertrand
