Products · Broad category
Parser generators
Raised as a usability problem by 7 people on Hacker News over 9 years (2017–2025), in 7 threads.
This is a broad category rather than one product, so its issues aren't ranked on the home page.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Couldn't figure out how to use parser generatorsUnreviewed
20172026- Current parser generators are hard to use; handling operator precedence is awkward and needs easier tools2025-04-14
- Parser generators are confusing to write and debug2024-12-25
- Parser generators give poor error messages compared to hand-written recursive descent parsers2023-01-17
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 7 complaints
- Current parser generators are hard to use; handling operator precedence is awkward and needs easier tools2025-04-14
- Parser generators are confusing to write and debug2024-12-25
- Parser generators give poor error messages compared to hand-written recursive descent parsers2023-01-17
- Author could never figure out how to use parser generators2021-04-07
- Error messages are vague and there is no good way to customise them2020-05-29
- Hard to use and debug; generated code and slow regeneration loops make debugging painful2017-10-17
- Parser generators produce difficult error messages unless the user has parser training2017-03-20