Re: 4.0a3 - Two Regular Expression Libraries? -- We need your input!
- Posted by jeremy (admin) Mar 21, 2009
- 1118 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.
The difference to me, and I believe others who decided to put regex in core, is that regex is used in a ton of applications. On the other hand, COM is not, GUI is not. Even if GUI were, there are many nice GUI libraries and which one is best? None, they all have their own benefits.
Regular Expressions can increase a programmers productivity in quite a bit of ways. They are beneficial enough that most other languages now include them as well. I am not saying that we should be like every other language, but I am saying, that many programmers have come to rely on them.
The downside to your suggestion is now that for my program to work, I must distribute my exe, as well as a gob of dll files to go along with it. This is fine for accessories, but regex was decided long ago to be an essential due to it's general use and lack of 50 different ways of doing it.
Jeremy
