Re: Ugly regexps

[Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>]

Hello, Lars.

On Thu, Mar 04, 2021 at 11:49:48 +0100, Lars Ingebrigtsen wrote:
> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

> > More generally, I wish we stopped investing so much of our time and
> > energy in cleanups and other support tasks, and more to add
> > significant new applications and editing features.  That would make
> > more users happier, I think.

> I think users will be very happy to be able to use the regexp syntax
> they know (instead of the special Emacs regexp variants) in their .emacs
> files.

Emacs users know the Emacs regexp syntax.  They may also be aware of
other variants.  There's nothing "special" about Emacs regexps - their
makeup is simply one variant amongst several.

I very much doubt users will be "very happy" about having to choose
between two regexp syntaxes.  I expect they are "happy" that each
program they use has just one regexp syntax, if they even think about
that at all.

Introducing an alternative regexp syntax would cause bloat (which Emacs
isn't short of), and impose extra work on Emacs hackers everywhere, who
at the very least would need to put something like

   (let (alternative-regexp-syntax) ....)

around all their entry points.  I don't want that extra hassle, that
extra bug source.

In short, this proposal is a proposal to increase complexity, increase
the workload on all hackers, and a source of future bugs.  What we've
got already works well enough.  Why change it?

> -- 
> (domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
>    bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).