From: news@cuboid.co.uk   
      
   I wrote:   
   > 	Never seen a reasonable two-level grammar?  Fi!   
   > [Good point.  So why don't we use them? -John]   
      
   	Good question.  Some answers:   
      
     (a)	We don't know how to parse them.  So we have first to convert   
   	them into simpler grammars, which somewhat defeats the point.   
      
     (b)	It's hard work to write one.  People who invent languages seem   
   	to prefer to specify an EBNF grammar, or similar, and then add   
   	the semantics by saying in natural language what the rules are.   
   	The result is that no-one knows what C, for example, really is,   
   	as there is no adequately formal specification.  Not since the   
   	days when the formal spec was DMR's compiler.   
      
     (c)	Fear.   
      
   --   
   Andy Walker   
   Nottingham   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)