[throwaway2016a]

That example you gave could certainly be done in Lex/Flex and I assume other lexers/tokenizers as well, for instance, you would probably use states and have "$x" in the initial state evaluate to a different token type than "$x" in the string state.

But I do get your meaning, I've written a lot of tokenizers by hand as well, sometimes they can be easier to follow the hand written code. Config files for grammars can get convoluted fast.

But again, I was not meaning it as criticism. But your talk title does start with "How to write a programming language and shell in Go" so given the title I think Lexers / Tokenizers are worth noting.

[xiaq]

Yeah, ultimately there's an element of personal taste at play.

The authoritative tone of "how to write ..." is meant in jest, but obviously by doing that I risk being misunderstood. A more accurate title would be "how I wrote ...", but it's slightly boring and I was trying hard to get my talk proposal accepted you see :)

[throwaway2016a]

As someone who has given a handful of talks at conferences.. 100% relatable.