From Matt Howitt <matt.howitt@nmr.varian.com>
Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 18:52:10 -0700 (PDT)

>
> 1.  Please provide a short description of JTB as a recommendation to
>     someone who has never seen or used it before.
>
    For a novice at lexical analyzers and parser generators, I found
    JTB immediately obvious and easy to use.  Using a user defined
    grammar not only does it generate the input JavaCC needs, but also
    a set of template methods which traverse the parse tree.  These
    methods can then be easily extended for the desired implementation.

> 2.  How would you classify your use of JTB?  What kind of work are you
>     doing or have you done using JTB?
>
    We have a "Pulse Sequence" language for our instrument, an NMR
    Spectrometer, which allows a user to program pulses, delays and
    acquisitions in any order they wish to perform experiments on
    our instrument.  As described in your overview, we use JTB as a
    front end syntax tree builder for JavaCC in order to generate a
    parse tree for our language.  Currently this is just prototype
    software.

> 3.  What is your opinion on JTB?  Did you find the tool useful?  Please
>     rate it on a scale from 1 to 10 (worst to best).
>
    I found JTB easy to understand, easy to implement, very useful and
    have not had any problems with it.  I would rate it a 10.

> 4.  Have you used other similar tools such as JJTree or ANTLR (specifically,
>     the tree-building aspect of it)?
>
    I looked at JJTree just before I found out about JTB.

> 5.  If you answered yes to number 4, how would you compare JTB with
>     these other tools?  Again, please rate it from 1 to 10 in comparison and
>     include anything you have to say, including comments on ease of use,
>     learning curve, etc.
>
    I don't have much experience with lexical analyzers and parser generators.
    I found JJTree difficult to understand how to use it in a systematic
    way.  That was not true with JTB.  It was almost immediately obvious on
    how to use it.  Having a Visitor superclass and a default method for each
    node makes it especially easy to use and understand.  I would again rate
    it a 10.

> 6.  Please include below any other comments you have regarding JTB.  Feel
>     free to include any suggestions for improvement.
>
    I like very much the "Visitor" pattern implementation in JTB.  I had
    been reading "Design Patterns" and trying to figure out the best way to
    implement the Visitor pattern for a parse tree, and here it was done
    in JTB.


Matt