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C4 – C in 4 functions

(github.com)
517 points petercooper | 1 comments | 04 Nov 14 20:19 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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abecedarius ◴[04 Nov 14 21:23 UTC] No.8559116[source]▶
On a first skim, this looks really nice; complaints that it's unreadable are unfounded. The background that makes it readable are Wirth's Compiler Construction http://www.ethoberon.ethz.ch/WirthPubl/CBEAll.pdf plus precedence climbing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operator-precedence_parser#Prec...
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dabockster ◴[04 Nov 14 23:53 UTC] No.8559784[source]▶
complaints that it's unreadable are unfounded

Not exactly. You have to remember that language and compiler design require a LOT of work and experience to understand, and that many programmers will only see this as, frankly, spaghetti.

I think it could have used some more block comments, but that's just me.

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1. ezy ◴[05 Nov 14 02:57 UTC] No.8560318[source]▶
Well, the goal is for it to be minimal, and C doesn't actually do a lot of work for you. On reading it, the algorithm it uses to parse was of less interest than the various tricks it uses to initialize and manage the state of the parser in a compact way.