From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: John Withers Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Perl, etc has these "?"-prefix modifiers/codes/whatever. Precisely which does emacs have (and NOT have)? Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2010 13:42:18 -0800 Message-ID: <1266529338.7034.62.camel@Frank-Brain> References: <877hqaojg9.fsf@galatea.lan.informatimago.com> <873a0ynz99.fsf@galatea.lan.informatimago.com> Reply-To: grayarea@reddagger.org NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1266529530 10077 80.91.229.12 (18 Feb 2010 21:45:30 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2010 21:45:30 +0000 (UTC) Cc: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org To: "Pascal J. Bourguignon" Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Feb 18 22:45:28 2010 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1NiEBa-0005Pm-TN for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 18 Feb 2010 22:45:27 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:40523 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1NiEBa-0004Gi-C1 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:45:26 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1NiE95-0003BU-3P for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:42:51 -0500 Original-Received: from [140.186.70.92] (port=45070 helo=eggs.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1NiE93-0003AF-G1 for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:42:50 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1NiE8y-00070A-F4 for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:42:49 -0500 Original-Received: from assert.reddagger.org ([66.211.107.215]:38268 helo=mail.reddagger.org) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1NiE8y-000704-4S for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:42:44 -0500 Original-Received: by mail.reddagger.org (Postfix, from userid 1007) id 1BF4118A4156; Thu, 18 Feb 2010 13:42:47 -0800 (PST) Original-Received: from [192.168.1.101] (c-67-164-33-174.hsd1.ca.comcast.net [67.164.33.174]) by mail.reddagger.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7EE9F18A411A; Thu, 18 Feb 2010 13:42:42 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <873a0ynz99.fsf@galatea.lan.informatimago.com> X-Mailer: Evolution 2.24.3 X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6, seldom 2.4 (older, 4) X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:71936 Archived-At: On Thu, 2010-02-18 at 20:02 +0100, Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote: > > In the case of "regular expressions", when you add certain extensions, > they're not regular expressions at all, so, I will just cite Jamie > Zawinski: While in the strict sense you are obviously correct, that really doesn't matter when you are programmer using a feature of your text editor. In practice we aren't using them to strictly define regular languages in some kind of formal language theory bakeoff. Well, I don't know that for a fact. You seem like a pretty smart guy and that might be your hobby. But in general, we are using them to get crap done. It doesn't matter to me if for reasons of formal definition we rename a modern regular expression engine as a MooCowPerlCrap engine in order not to conflict with the formal definition. I still will argue that having a MCPC engine would be a nice feature. Heck, emacs has a rich history of using terms that no one in the wider, growing world gets as time goes on anyway (I am talking to you, frames). sed, grep, xemacs and pretty much the entire rest of the ecosystem caught this idea quite some time ago, and it would be nice to have these features in emacs. The quote you are pulling is from a discussion of exactly this issue, as I am sure you are aware. But the funny thing here is that Jamie in the last few years was using Perl extensively. He might not like it, but he was using it: http://regex.info/blog/2006-09-15/247#comment-3085 I don't disagree that regexes might be a pain or overused, but what I don't get is the idea that if you are going to have them in the first place, you don't add some pretty handy features that the rest of the ecosystem has been using for decades now and won't degrade the base features, if for some reason of formal purity you decide to use only those. I dunno, then again, I might just not be getting the emacs way. I have only been using emacs a few years and my lisp skills aren't that strong, and except for org-mode I use my emacs almost always in its tertiary role as a programmers text editor. john withers