ANTLR: An Informal Introduction

In this article, I am going to introduce you to ANTLR's powerful framework. Equipped with this framework, we will also write a relatively simple language that coordinates the process of shearing a metal sheet (or any other sheet). The first steps in the language are going to be relatively simple, but in the next articles, more and more details will emerge. In the end, we will have something fully-fledged and effectively functioning. So, without further ado, let's take a closer look at how ANTLR works. 

What Is ANTLR? And How Can You Use It?

ANTLR (ANother Tool for Language Recognition), according to Terence Parr, "is a powerful parser generator for reading, processing, executing, or translating structured text or binary files. It’s widely used to build languages, tools, and frameworks. From grammar, ANTLR generates a parser that can build and walk parse trees."

Pyleri Tutorial: Parsing with Ease

You can find the source code in the companion  repository.

Welcome to a tutorial on Pyleri, a.k.a. the Python Left-Right Parser, a simple parsing tool used you need something more robust than a regular expression but less dense than a full-parser generator. In this tutorial, we are going to show you how to use the tool to quickly parse through your text files.

Why Learn Pyleri?

We chose Pyleri because of its ease of use and its overall effectiveness. It makes creating parsers easy. It can also quickly support features like auto-completion. In addition, the same grammar can also generate parsers for multiple languages: JavaScript, C, Python, Go and Java. It is also well-tested given that it was designed to be used with SiriDB, a highly-scalable and fast time-series database.

Jetpack Retires Proofreading Module, Time to Find A New Grammar and Spellchecking Alternative

Jetpack 7.3 was released last week and if you didn’t read the changelog, you may have missed that the spelling and grammar checking module that uses After the Deadline has been retired.

“Grammar and Spelling: Remove from Jetpack. We’ve chekced the spelling alot over the years, but now time to retire.”

From the Jetpack 7.3 Changelog

According to James Huff, an Automattician and volunteer moderator, the module was removed in favor of better options being available.

“We removed the feature as it has become a bit redundant lately,” he said. “Most major web browsers have some form of this already built-in, and free extensions like Grammarly are making huge strides in the field. It felt like the right time to back out of that field and focus more on everything else we offer.”

After the Deadline is a service that was created in 2008 by Raphael Mudge and was acquired by Automattic in 2009. It not only checked for grammar and spelling errors, it did so contextually and provided style suggestions. Mudge moved on from Automattic in 2010 and the service has seemingly operated on auto-pilot.

After the Deadline Proofreading Button in the Calypso Editor

Between 2010 and 2011, the Jetpack team added support for AtD with a proofreading module. Unfortunately, the proofreading button that was available in the Classic editor was not ported over to Gutenberg. This issue was originally reported on GitHub in 2018 but was closed 14 days ago due to AtD support being removed from Jetpack, WordPress.com, and Calypso.

I’ve used After the Deadline for 10 years and although there’s no official statement on when the service will be retired, the writing appears to be on the wall.

I plan to give Grammarly a try but I’ll miss After the Deadline. What grammar and spellchecking services or software do you use and recommend as an alternative to After the Deadline?