From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Perry E. Metzger" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: modern regexes in emacs Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2019 18:33:17 -0500 Message-ID: <20190215183317.45d559a6@jabberwock.cb.piermont.com> References: <20180616123704.7123f6d7@jabberwock.cb.piermont.com> <87po0qs6re.fsf@gmail.com> <83r2c9m8yj.fsf@gnu.org> <17581DA9-7DCA-432E-A2E8-E5184DFA8B4B@acm.org> <20190215114728.0785e891@jabberwock.cb.piermont.com> <20190215175405.GA5438@ACM> <43edeabe-7758-4c7e-b00c-fd16e3505ef7@default> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Injection-Info: blaine.gmane.org; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:195.159.176.226"; logging-data="152976"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@blaine.gmane.org" Cc: Mattias =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Engdeg=E5rd?= , lokedhs@gmail.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org, Philippe Vaucher , jaygkamat@gmail.com, Alan Mackenzie , Eli Zaretskii To: Drew Adams Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Feb 16 00:34:30 2019 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:256) (Exim 4.89) (envelope-from ) id 1gumzz-000dVp-Dj for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 16 Feb 2019 00:34:27 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:48777 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1gumzy-0005EN-11 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 15 Feb 2019 18:34:26 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([209.51.188.92]:56551) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1gumzD-0005EA-6r for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 15 Feb 2019 18:33:39 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1gumzC-0008DU-1H for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 15 Feb 2019 18:33:38 -0500 Original-Received: from hacklheber.piermont.com ([2001:470:30:84:e276:63ff:fe62:3400]:55946) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1gumyz-0007kM-7D; Fri, 15 Feb 2019 18:33:26 -0500 Original-Received: from snark.cb.piermont.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by hacklheber.piermont.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 76783F2; Fri, 15 Feb 2019 18:33:17 -0500 (EST) Original-Received: from jabberwock.cb.piermont.com (jabberwock.cb.piermont.com [10.160.2.107]) by snark.cb.piermont.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 52FCE3C2001; Fri, 15 Feb 2019 18:33:17 -0500 (EST) In-Reply-To: <43edeabe-7758-4c7e-b00c-fd16e3505ef7@default> X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 2001:470:30:84:e276:63ff:fe62:3400 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:233402 Archived-At: On Fri, 15 Feb 2019 10:27:44 -0800 (PST) Drew Adams wrote: > > > Modern syntax is the main one. > > > > Such use of "modern" always gets on my nerves. "Modern" is not > > the same as "good", and likely has a very weak correlation with > > it. > > Not to mention that "modern" has been applied to the latest > fashion, ephemeral or not, for at least 100 years. Today's > modernista is tomorrow morning's has-been, but s?he sometimes > continues to tout the same old-fashioned modernisms. Look, the old syntax was replaced by the Unix people in the early 1980s because it was garbage. Everyone uses the new syntax, and everyone is used to it. Sure, new doesn't always mean better, but in this case, yes, the newer regex syntax is a whole lot better, not to mention that it's what everyone on earth is used to. > > They're not obsolete: they're used in grep, sed, and in Emacs. They are not used in egrep which is now 35 years old, and all modern seds take modern RE syntax if you ask, and everyone who uses sed asks. > Emacs itself has been obsolete for longer than many Emacs users > have been alive. Emacs is dead. Long live Emacs. No, Emacs is not obsolete, because it's a living editor that adapts to the times. The emacs of 2019 is very much not the Emacs of 1983 that I started with. It has shifted and adapted well with time. But I think that many people seem to want to encase it in amber and kill it by making it irrelevant to modern users. Luckily they won't get their way. Perry -- Perry E. Metzger perry@piermont.com