From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: John Stalker To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net> In-reply-to: <5d375e920903040531j29fcbdc6na7b4e9a57563b708@mail.gmail.com> References: <13426df10903031413n13e53b8bxef266c2551aa8abd@mail.gmail.com> <509071940903031537le1af6e4t33b6cd97b470b829@mail.gmail.com> <7359f0490903031631o55358b62ic9dd947d83e410b3@mail.gmail.com> <7359f0490903040152v76bb505at39d58992b9a37fbb@mail.gmail.com> <5d375e920903040531j29fcbdc6na7b4e9a57563b708@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-ID: <11551.1236184550.1@maths.tcd.ie> Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2009 16:35:50 +0000 Message-Id: <20090304163550.E867A8F05@okapi.maths.tcd.ie> Subject: Re: [9fans] command repetition in sam/acme Topicbox-Message-UUID: b1105304-ead4-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 > But I think that anyone not under the influence of psychedelic > substances that has suffered PCR, will agree we don't want to move in > that direction, and even if small, counting is a step in that > direction. Your feelings are understandable, given the horror of pcre, but in this case they are irrational. pcre is an atrocity for two reasons: (1) it is badly implemented and (2) it changes the family of languages which can be matched by regular expressions. In fact (1) is more or less a consequence of (2). Adding counts would do neither of these, it just makes it a bit easier to and more natural to describe some languages in the class. There are sane objections to adding counts, but I don't think this is really one of them. -- John Stalker School of Mathematics Trinity College Dublin tel +353 1 896 1983 fax +353 1 896 2282