Re: Unquoted special characters in regexps

[Richard Stallman]

The basic concept of a character class is an entity surrounded by
matching parentheses.  However, quirks such as quoting make it
necessary to understand the construct in terms of left-to-right
parsing for complete understanding of the details.

I think the manual needs to explain both levels--the first level so
beginners can begin to understand, and the second level for precise
thinking about counterintuitive regexps.

I could certainly do that, but I am terribly overloaded.  Would
someone else like to try it?

Meanwhile, I sure wish the quoting conventions for regexps
were more rational.  But that would be an incompatible change
and I think the minuses will always outweigh the pluses.