From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Off Topic (was: bug#31544) Date: Thu, 24 May 2018 20:01:38 +0300 Message-ID: <83603dasy5.fsf@gnu.org> References: <7D0B397D-5D1B-4B8C-93B6-1CA207DD552A@scratch.space> <6271469D-6B02-4334-828E-D81816143734@scratch.space> <20180524163534.GA4035@ACM> Reply-To: Eli Zaretskii NNTP-Posting-Host: blaine.gmane.org X-Trace: blaine.gmane.org 1527181182 3822 195.159.176.226 (24 May 2018 16:59:42 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 24 May 2018 16:59:42 +0000 (UTC) Cc: van@scratch.space, emacs-devel@gnu.org, rms@gnu.org, npostavs@gmail.com To: Alan Mackenzie Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu May 24 18:59:38 2018 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1fLtaU-0000ss-9d for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 24 May 2018 18:59:38 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:39866 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1fLtcb-0003v4-C9 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 24 May 2018 13:01:49 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:46018) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1fLtcV-0003uw-0o for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 24 May 2018 13:01:43 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1fLtcP-0008Hj-Cr for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 24 May 2018 13:01:43 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:39074) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1fLtcP-0008HV-8T; Thu, 24 May 2018 13:01:37 -0400 Original-Received: from [176.228.60.248] (port=3979 helo=home-c4e4a596f7) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtpsa (TLS1.2:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:256) (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1fLtcH-0004Ez-Th; Thu, 24 May 2018 13:01:30 -0400 In-reply-to: <20180524163534.GA4035@ACM> (message from Alan Mackenzie on Thu, 24 May 2018 16:35:34 +0000) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-Received-From: 2001:4830:134:3::e 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:225667 Archived-At: > Date: Thu, 24 May 2018 16:35:34 +0000 > Cc: Noam Postavsky , van@scratch.space, eliz@gnu.org, > emacs-devel@gnu.org > From: Alan Mackenzie > > rx.el uses a wordy syntax, somewhat analagously to Cobol 50 years ago. > Its premiss is that it's the terse, dense, austere characters which make > a regexp difficult to write and read. I would suggest that it's more > the abstract concepts which cause beginners difficulties, rather than > the syntax. This was true of Cobol 50 years ago, and I think it's > always been the case with regexps. I actually agree with the premise: reading an rx spec of a regexp is much easier than reading the regexp itself. > That said, rx.el is used ~72 times in 19 files.el in Emacs, so somebody > likes it. I certainly do (but I'm not responsible for those uses).