Re: f.c.

[Mark-Jason Dominus <mjd@saul.cis.upenn.edu>]

> 1) I don't want to add a new feature to rc unless someone cannot do
> what they need to do without it.

For several weeks, I have been debating whether or not to ask for a
`...' feature.  I have always refrained.  It was not much work to code
up a version of `seq' and use that, and I find that it works well
enough.  

There are exactly two things I like about rc:

	1.  It is very fast.

	2.  The syntax is very simple.

The rest I can take or leave, but these two qualities were enough to
convince me to switch shells and redo all my .alias and ...rc files.
Until rc, I had never used a shell in which it was obvious how to quote
any given construction.  Today I catted a file called
Frequently_Asked_Questions_about_Unix_-_with_Answers_[Monthly_posting]
and I did not have to worry about metacharacters.  I can type a
multiline awk script on the command line and not worry about the shell
interpreting my awk script.  This is a big deal for me.  Even with sh, I
found that it was difficult to predict just how a certain construct
might be evaluated.  rc does the same thing every time.

I think it would be a shame to see these two qualities go away.  Putting
a `seq' or `...' operator into the language might be convenient, but it
wouldn't be much more convenient than using an external `seq'.  I would
rather spend my `very fast' advantage on exec'ing external programs than
mess up the neat syntax.