Introduction

Introduction

And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows;

And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land flowing with milk and honey...

(Exodus, 3, 7-8)

Parser?

Our dearest reader is now most likely wondering what it may mean. You'll get the answer quite soon, but to begin with, we'd like to make several assumptions:

The first and foremost (which is undoubtedly a prerequisite) is that you know what HTML is. If this abbreviation is unclear to you, you will surely find further reading boring and useless, since-being a programming language-Parser is designed to simplify and systematize HTML-programming.

The second and essential is that we encourage you to practice a lot (since only practice makes perfect), which presupposes that you have Parser3 handy (that is, installed). A comprehensive guide on how to install and configure Parser may be found in a relevant Appendix.

And the third (just the third) is that you have some time to spare, you're patient enough, your IQ is 50 or higher, and you're eager to make your HTML-programming easy, logical, and elegant. We, in our turn, promise that learning this language is worth spending time, since it will provide you with new valuable opportunities.

As you can see, that's not really much. All the rest is OUR concern.

Parser…

Parser was born in 1997 in Art. Lebedev Studio (www.design.ru). It was designed for those who have been creating best sites in Runet (Russian Internet) to facilitate their work and let them spend less time on routine work and more-on creative. Why should we drive nails with a microscope if there's a hammer?

That is why the most of Internet projects of the Studio are written in Parser. This technology is much simpler than anything designed for the purpose. But simplicity doesn't imply primitiveness here, as Parser can be used by both professional programmers and beginners. Now we provide this opportunity to you.

Parser's concept is quite simple. One embeds special constructions into HTML pages to be processed by Parser before a visitor can see the result. Parser handles the task of final arrangement and layout, too. This reminds a meccano, where one simply has to assemble all ready parts into different combinations. If you fall short of parts most commonly used in this meccano, you can design your own "to-measure" modules which will fulfill your personal needs. It's feasible and, indeed, quite fast to do!

You will see it for yourself when you get down to work.

Parser!

Let's sum it up. What opportunities does Parser provide? You get variables, loops, conditions, and so on-in short, everything lacked by HTML alone. Unless you use Parser, your every document will be much bigger and still many problems will remain unsolved. Parser will deliver you from repeating same instructions all the time and let you form dynamic pages reacting to user's needs, work with databases, XML, and external HTTP-servers, and quickly change pages' layout. This all can be done without complicated programming commonly needed.

Your pages will be assembled from separate ready pieces and you will only let Parser know what to take, how many to take, where to place and what succession to keep. If you need to rearrange or add something, you will just need to specify it and the rest will be done automatically. Besides, the project will become more logical and simpler to understand by means of structuring.

Very soon you will be enjoying the long-expected privilege of those who used sophisticated programming languages, which needed months or sometimes even years of learning and practice.

There is one more evident advantage: separate modules can be developed by different people, who will then be able to support and update them independently. This will ensure comfortable division of labor and possibility for many people to work over one project at the same time in most comfortable conditions.

All in all, we can count advantages of using Parser for ages. Anyway, we hope we said enough for you to get down and try. After all, doesn't our experience prove our case? Moreover, we don't charge any money. We just want Internet to become better! And we have a ready and safe solution-Parser. We are sure you'll love it the way we do.

Let's go and get it!

Last updated: 01.04.2004