RE: modern regexes in emacs

[Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com>]

> > 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.

There's absolutely nothing new about labeling something "modern" (or "old-fashioned", for that matter).  Nothing new about "modern".

> Why aren't we all using "modern" editors, for example?

Why indeed?

Headline: "Users of Anachronistic Editor Emacs Go 'Modern'!"

> > I think we should make it possible to slowly switch over to the syntax
> > everyone using regexps has gotten used to over the last 30 years or so.
> > BREs in the style Emacs has been using have been obsolete for longer
> > than many Emacs users have been alive.
> 
> They're not obsolete: they're used in grep, sed, and in Emacs.
> 
> There are several different standards for writing regexps, all of
> approximately the same age.  None is better than any other (aside from
> extra facilities available in some versions).

But surely some are "modern" and others are "obsolete", Alan. ;-)

(What's the equivalent of L'Academie Francaise for things technical?)

Emacs itself has been obsolete for longer than many Emacs users have been alive.  Emacs is dead.  Long live Emacs.

> This seems to me to be the same argument as that proposing that Emacs
> should change its key bindings to match those of other programs, because
> "everybody" knows those other bindings.

Emacs key bindings have been obsolete longer than many Emacs users have been alive.  Please remember this.