Re: Add some aliases for re-related functions

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hello, Yuan.

On Sat, May 02, 2020 at 14:28:08 -0400, Yuan Fu wrote:
> While debating whether it’s effective to add prefixes to increase
> discoverability, lets start with incremental and uncontroversial
> changes.

Ha!  No chance!  ;-(

I don't believe these proposed changes will increase discoverability to
any important extent.  More importantly, they will decrease the
usability of these functions, as they will be more of a hassle to type
in and (more importantly) make the functions they are in more difficult
to read.

> Let’s start from re-related functions since it seems that many people
> agree on this. Here is a list of functions that I think could benefit
> from an alias. 

> replace-regexp-in-string      re-replace-in-string
> replace-match                 re-replace-match
> string-match                  re-search-in-string
> string-match-p                        re-match-in-string-p
> match-string                  re-matched-string
> match-string-no-properties    re-matched-string-no-properties
> match-beginning                       re-match-beginning
> match-end                     re-match-end

> looking-at                    re-match-after-point
> looking-back                  re-match-before-point
> looking-at-p                  re-match-after-point-p
> posix-search-forward          re-posix-search-forward
> posix-search-backward         re-posix-search-backward
> posix-looking-at              re-posix-looking-at
> posix-search-in-string                re-posix-search-in-string

> Let’s do it like this: if you don’t like adding alias to a certain
> function (strongly), call it out and we will remove it from the list
> for now.

I strongly object to those aliases which make the function name longer.
I particularly object to `re-match-after-point' for `looking-at'.  Not
only is it much longer, it lacks the instant readibility of looking-at,
and the slightly humorous notion of "looking", as though with ones eyes.
I particularly object to `re-matched-string', which has double the
number of syllables in it as the original.

As a small point, you've erased the commonality between
match-beginning/end and match-string.  This is a bad thing.

> Then we should have a small list that everybody agrees upon (or at
> least no one absolutely hates). 

I hate your list.  ;-)  (Nothing personal in that.)

> And please do not drift the topic away in this thread, which hinders
> the original purpose of the thread. Let’s focus on these functions and
> only these functions.

As long as people do not take for granted that introducing lots of
aliases is a good thing.  I believe it is not.

> Yuan

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).