Stackless & String-processing

[Graham Matthews]

Fernando Pereira (pereira at research.att.com) wrote:
: but, as far as I know, nothing beats
: the automata-theoretic optimization techniques for pattern matching and
: parsing, of which the typical modern compiler for regular expressions
: is just the best-known instance.

In what sense are you using the words "nothing beats". I am sure that
the automata-theoretic approach produces the fastest pattern matchers
and parsers. So on this sense "nothing beats them".  But the class of 
languages recognisable by automaton doesn't cover all the languages of
interest (in fact my guess is it covers very few ... context ...). So
in this sense lots of things "beat" the automata approach. And then
there are software engineering issues ...

graham

-- 
              This ain't no technological breakdown
                 Oh no, this is the road to hell