HN Reader

> All is set and done

For the record, the phrase is 'when all is said and done'[1].

[1]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/when_all_is_said_and_done

I somewhat regularly stop to marvel that one of the greatest anarchist thinkers of our time is also responsible for foundational theories in linguistics that also correspond intimately with the foundational theories of computing. God bless Noam.

Very long write-up! If you read it and like the content, you might consider ditching Python and start using Raku a lot and often.

I think this makes it sound a lot more difficult than it has to be, with the formal theory.

When it's really one of the most simple things if you divide it in parts and look at it from a tokenizer (string to list of tokens) and parser on top. Where the tokenizer can usually be very simple: a loop, large switch on the current character, where a choice is made on "what can this be", and making it into a formal token or error. Then a simple recursive parser that can almost be a 1 to 1 copy of the (E)BNF.