Re: ELisp: special read syntax for regular expressions?

[Tim X <timx@nospam.dev.null>]

Ilya Zakharevich <nospam-abuse@ilyaz.org> writes:

> A few of years ago RMS asked me what one could do to make ELisp regular
> expressions more handable.
>
> Now, when the support for Perl REx in CPerl mode is finally finished,
> I think I know the answer: one needs to allow a special read syntax
> for regular expressions (the result being an ordinary string).  This
> way one can avoid the acute backslashitis [by inverting \( and (,
> etc], the regular expressions may be specially indented, and the
> syntax highlighter would have a chance to remove most of the remaining
> complexity by proper highlighting (similar to CPerl one).
>
> What do you think?
>
> Yours,
> Ilya
>
> P.S.  I put example of how my (Perl) test "code" is highlighted to
>
> 	ilyaz.org/software/tmp/CPerl-REx-highlight.png

This sounds like a good idea. Many people, including myself, do find
elisp's REs a bit painful and its noticed even more these days since
perl compatible REs seem to have become a bit of a default standard. 

A modified read syntax certainly seems to be feasible and to my mind it
fits with a lisp way of doing things. Will be interesting to see how
easily that can be worked into emacs in a consistent way.

Tim


-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au