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I already checked the code and I know from my CS courses that's it's easier to code and unit-test a language lexer/parser in Java than in C++ or C.

Was that the main reason to code it in Java?



The reason why the parser was written in Java in the first place was that it was written for the Validator.nu HTML validator. The validator was written in Java, because Java had the best set of Unicode-correct libraries for the purpose and a common API (SAX) for connecting the libraries.

Even though testing wasn't the original motivation for writing in Java, it's much nicer to unit test the parser as its isolated Java manifestation than as its Gecko-integrated C++ manifestation.




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