[mumblemumble]

I've run into some limitations, too. It doesn't really break the deal for me, because I typically only use them for smaller jobs. The type where it's often more common to use regular expressions, which are generally even worse in most those categories.

My guess is that it's coming from a difference in the framing of how thins work. In ANTLR, you supply a grammar, and then the grammar gets compiled into a parser, all in one go. That maximizes the elbow room available for fine-tuning the overall product.

Parser combinators, OTOH, frame the problem as building larger parsers by composing smaller parsers. Each of those parsers is presumed to be fully formed. There's a beauty to that approach that I really like. But it does mean that the parser library is forever dealing with arrangements of trees, without much of an option to take a step back and look at the forest.

(Unless you're working in a homoiconic language like lisp, anyway.)