== Quote from Walter Bright ([email protected])'s article > Sean Kelly wrote: > > Sounds like HTTP/HTML. The best I've come up with so far for parsing > > that stuff is to have the lexer actually return tokens representing > > whitespace > > in some instances. It's totally ridiculous. > When you see ad-hoc designs like that, it's obvious the designer has no > experience with compilers. It's why every programmer should take a basic > course in compiler design <g>.
I very much agree. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that my compiler design course was the single most valuable CS course I took while in college. It's amazing how many problems I encounter have something to do with parsing or language translation. It's also amazing how many crappy parsers there are out there for these same tasks. Clearly, compiler design doesn't get as much attention as it should in undergrad CS.
