Re: timezone.el patterns in emacs 19.34

[Ken Raeburn <raeburn@cygnus.com>]

Yes, I think you could write a faster date parser in C than either the
lisp or yacc versions.  (This much is obvious -- as a worst case, use
the existing lisp interpreter or yacc output, both of which are C, and
improve things from there.)  Would it be as readable and maintainable
as the lisp or yacc versions?  Maybe.  Would it be worth spending the
time?  I doubt it, at least for right now.  If you want to do it
anyways, go for it....

> > > Then, there are copyright problems with it.
> > No, there aren't.
> Yes, there are.  The public domain code is not to be introduced in
> important parts of Emacs, as it is compromisable.

"Compromisable?"  Why, because the FSF might not be able to get
paperwork saying it really is PD?  They could try, and I suspect such
paperwork would be enough.  (Actually, I'd be surprised if there
weren't some other GNU programs using a date parser already.  For
example, GNU date in sh-utils.)

> > > And, I'd like to have a fast routine that matches those 7 or so
> > > format strings.
> > Yes, that's the problem I see with it -- it'll handle more than we
> > want.
> `getdate.y' would handle even more.

Uh, yes, that's what I meant to say.
The "it" I was referring to was getdate.y.