Parsing algebraic expressions is always a pain. If you need to compute, say, 2+4*2, the answer should be the same as (2 + (4 *2)), not ((2 + 4) * 2) — in other words, the right answer is 10, not 12.

Let's say I want to implement a parser that just spits out a serialized AST (JSON, XML, whatever's easy). The languages I'd be parsing would be lightweight markup languages like Markdown, RST, etc.

Programming computers used to be harder. Don’t get us wrong — today, people tend to solve harder problems with computers, but the fundamental act of programming is easier. We have high-level languages ...