Create README.md

README.md

@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
+# A collection of LR parser generators, from LR0 through LALR.
+
+One day I read a tweet, asking for a tool which accepted a grammar and an
+input file and which then produced simple parsed output, without any kind of
+in-between. (There was other ranty stuff about how none of the existing tools
+really worked, but that was beside the point.)
+
+Upon reading the tweet, it occured to me that I didn't know how LR parsers
+worked and how they were generated, except in the broadest of terms. Thus, I
+set about writing this, learning as I went.
+
+This code is not written to be fast, or even efficient, although it runs its
+test cases fast enough. It was instead written to be easy to follow along
+with, so that when I forget how all this works I can come back to the code
+and read along and learn all over again.
+
+(BTW, the notes I read to learn how all this works are at
+http://dragonbook.stanford.edu/lecture-notes/Stanford-CS143/. Specifically,
+I started with handout 8, 'Bottom-up-parsing', and went from there. (I did
+eventually have to backtrack a little into handout 7, since that's where
+First() and Follow() are covered.)
+
+Enjoy!
+
+doty
+2016-12-09