From: "B. K. Oxley (binkley)" <binkley@...>
Date: 2005-03-31T01:03:01+09:00
Subject: Re: look-behind regexp ?

Austin Ziegler wrote:
> 1. Licensing. PCRE's licensing has been somewhat fluid. The current
> release seems OK.
> 2. Control. In many ways, such a core feature to Ruby should be native to Ruby.
> 3. Native concepts. Ruby REs are a bit different because they end up
> being objects.

Hrm.

In all honesty, these objections seem weak to me.

If the licensing is not a problem right now, why would it necessarily 
become one in the future?  (Although I don't know the history of 
licensing in PCRE, so perhaps it has a record of arbitrariness.)

Control is not so important when you have the source code.  And Ruby can 
contribute to the development of PCRE.

I'm unsure what you mean in point three.  I presume that a Ruby regexp 
implementation would use PCRE for implementation, wrapping any details 
so that the implementation is not visible, and only objects remain.

Not to be so nitpicky, I only used PCRE as an example.  I have an 
inherent dislike of wheel-reinvention (my natural laziness at play), so 
my ears perk up when I see something like a rewrite of regexp parsers 
when so many fine ones are already around.


Cheers,
--binkley