Re: antlr 2.x in pkgsrc?

[Mayuresh <mayuresh%acm.org@localhost>]

On Fri, Jul 09, 2021 at 10:42:56AM -0500, J. Lewis Muir wrote:
> The latest version of ANTLR is 4, so if anything, I think it would make
> sense to import that as "antlr" rather than 2.  If you specifically
> want ANTLR 2, then I guess we would be in the situation where we want
> multiple versions in pkgsrc and thus would need the versioned naming
> (i.e., "antlr2", "antlr3", and "antlr4") based on the "exactly one
> version in pkgsrc which is unversioned, or multiple versions which *all*
> have versioned names" notion that Greg Troxel points out from time to
> time [1][2][3][4][5].

I agree, in general, this makes a lot of sense.

However in some projects, it happens so - they colloquially get recognized
by a major version suffix. This has historically happened so with antlr.
For most users they are antlr, antlr3 and anltr4. Not surprisingly, in
most Linux distros and FreeBSD ports, the unversioned name goes to antlr
2.

One of the reasons leading to this could be that the grammar specification
languages of these versions aren't backward compatible. So they are almost
as if different software. E.g. among developers it makes sense to say "I
am using antlr3 based parser" or "using antlr4" etc. to make it more
specific. And by virtue of legacy antlr2 remained antlr in such
conversations.

Anyway, personally, I'm not trying to insist on this. The availability of
antlr 2 (and others) in pkgsrc, with whatever name, will be a great thing
IMHO.

-- 
Mayuresh