Re: 4.0a3 - Two Regular Expression Libraries? -- We need your input!
- Posted by SDPringle Mar 21, 2009
- 1164 views
I saw this thread in the developer list. I just wanted to leave some comments. There are many useful things Euphoria can and could do. Suppose I propose we add C code from a wx gui library? This will allow us to make portable gui apps in EUPHORIA. Suppose I propose we add COM support to EUPHORIA? Create shortcuts and such. What about Windows registry support? The punch line here is it is there already.
There are two ways to make a program. You can have it as one exe file or you can have an exe file and various dlls floating about the system. The former way of doing things is what we saw in the DOS days and for Linux the early distributions. There is an article about the benefits of ELF-binary format in some of the old Linux distros, see Slackware 3.0, and it is really more about the differences between having dlls instead of static linking.
Let's go with PCRE but distribute with EUPHORIA as a dynamic library wrapped into EUPHORIA. Just like wxEUPHORIA, EUCONS, and the registry library, EUPHORIA can call code in a dll instead of call its own binary and it is better because "it gives the user a faster upgrade path." Suppose, a bug is found in the wx dlls? Do you wait for another release of EUPHORIA to inherit the bug fix? NO! You upgrade the DLL ofcourse and PCRE shouldn't be any different. If developers leave PCRE in EUPHORIA users still have to wait on the PCRE guys and the EUPHORIA developers as well to release it.
That is what I thought about PCRE when it was first introduced into the svn and that is what I think of it now. I am at a loss why clever people would be doing this in such an archaic way.
Shawn Pringle
