From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Alan Mackenzie Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Ugly regexps Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2021 11:28:41 +0000 Message-ID: References: <83pn0g6ajq.fsf@gnu.org> <83v9a8jj2x.fsf@gnu.org> <83mtvkjb6c.fsf@gnu.org> <96182b13-f921-6f91-0cdc-320f54ed16bf@yandex.ru> <87lfb3w5v7.fsf@gnus.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="25716"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" Cc: Eli Zaretskii , Dmitry Gutov , stefankangas@gmail.com, monnier@iro.umontreal.ca, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Lars Ingebrigtsen Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Thu Mar 04 12:29:56 2021 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1lHmB1-0006aP-OL for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Thu, 04 Mar 2021 12:29:55 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:52606 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1lHmB0-0004Pb-R6 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Thu, 04 Mar 2021 06:29:54 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:38150) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1lHm9z-0003XN-FE for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 04 Mar 2021 06:28:51 -0500 Original-Received: from colin.muc.de ([193.149.48.1]:51291 helo=mail.muc.de) by eggs.gnu.org with smtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1lHm9s-0000WX-Ia for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 04 Mar 2021 06:28:51 -0500 Original-Received: (qmail 62136 invoked by uid 3782); 4 Mar 2021 11:28:42 -0000 Original-Received: from acm.muc.de (p4fe15b28.dip0.t-ipconnect.de [79.225.91.40]) (using STARTTLS) by colin.muc.de (tmda-ofmipd) with ESMTP; Thu, 04 Mar 2021 12:28:41 +0100 Original-Received: (qmail 6044 invoked by uid 1000); 4 Mar 2021 11:28:41 -0000 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <87lfb3w5v7.fsf@gnus.org> X-Submission-Agent: TMDA/1.3.x (Ph3nix) X-Primary-Address: acm@muc.de Received-SPF: pass client-ip=193.149.48.1; envelope-from=acm@muc.de; helo=mail.muc.de X-Spam_score_int: -18 X-Spam_score: -1.9 X-Spam_bar: - X-Spam_report: (-1.9 / 5.0 requ) BAYES_00=-1.9, SPF_HELO_NONE=0.001, SPF_PASS=-0.001 autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no X-Spam_action: no action X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 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-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.devel:265942 Archived-At: Hello, Lars. On Thu, Mar 04, 2021 at 11:49:48 +0100, Lars Ingebrigtsen wrote: > Eli Zaretskii 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).