The Parsec documentation says that Parsec performs best on predictive grammars, and Parsec does not backtrack by default to improve performance (though this also improves error messages). On the other hand, I notice that attoparsec and polyparse backtrack by default, and attoparsec claims to be faster than Parsec (I can't remember if polyparse makes this claim). The Parsec documentation says there is a penalty for using try and suggests left-factoring grammars when possible. Real World Haskell says that excessive use of try can degrade Parsec performance quite significantly. On the other hand, some of the combinators provided with Parsec, such as notFollowedBy, use try. So my question is: what is the practical impact of using try? I ask because as a novice I have a simple grammar that could, perhaps, be factored to avoid use of try, but it's quite a brain puzzle for me and I wonder if it would ever be worth it. Does it matter how many characters "try" would have to store, or how often it would run?