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From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Subject: Re: CL grammar ambiguities?
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References: <WGD.95Feb10182248@martigny.ai.mit.edu> <09qD1c1w165w@sytex.com>
Date: Tue, 14 Feb 1995 16:05:11 GMT
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In article <09qD1c1w165w@sytex.com> smcl@sytex.com (Scott McLoughlin) writes:
>wgd@zurich.ai.mit.edu (William G. Dubuque) writes:
>
>[ discussion of ambiguous reader syntax deleted ]

What's the evidence that it *is* ambiguous?  It may well be, but
so far all I've seen is people saying they can't figure it out.

>> I would not be surprised if the lack of rigor here stems from the
>> fact that most CL implementors never used a parser or lexer
>> generator to generate a reader or lexer but instead compose these
>> algorithms by hand. Use of a parser or lexer generate would help
>> to uncover such ambiguities and imprecision.
>
>Howdy,
>        Good point.  Are there any 100% portable CL sources
>available that implement a Lisp reader and that are PD.

What do you mean by 100% portable?  Some of them are in C and
are as portable as C usually is. 

-- jeff
