Re: modern regexes in emacs

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2019 19:14:47 +0000
> Cc: address@hidden, address@hidden, address@hidden,
>   address@hidden, address@hidden, address@hidden
> From: Alan Mackenzie <address@hidden>
> 
> > > I suggest we retain our current regexp notation, together with compatible
> > > tools, as the sole way of writing regexps in Emacs.  This notation is not
> > > all that bad, and it is thoroughly documented and well tested.  It's the
> > > approach which will cause the least confusion.  It works.
> 
> > I proposed to have a separate set of functions that will accept PCRE
> > syntax.  That would allow everyone to have what they want: you to use
> > the "classic" regexps, and those who want PCRE to have that.  Where's
> > the problem with that?
> 
> This will end up with a mixture of the two incompatible styles of regexp
> in the Emacs sources.  I can see there being such a mixture even within
> single source files.  This will be confusing to everybody, particularly
> to beginners.

How is that different from having rx.el?  And how is that different
from having pcase.el, which invents a whole new sub-language on tyop
of Lisp?  Etc. etc. -- that ship has already sailed.

IMO, we'd be silly (let alone look and sound silly) to try to stop
this.  The net result will be an unbunlded package which everyone will
use, while we bury our heads in the sand.