Re: [Chicken-users] two minor tweaks to runtime.c

[Alan Post]

On Thu, Sep 29, 2011 at 12:33:41PM +0900, Alex Shinn wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 29, 2011 at 12:25 PM, Alan Post <address@hidden> wrote:
> >
> > How did irregex, which by account is slower, replace the existing
> > regex code?
> 
> I didn't make the call, but as I understand that was motivated
> by portability concerns, simplifying the Chicken distribution,
> and avoiding the frequently occurring memory bugs in PCRE.
> 
> So speed wasn't a concern, but there is a class of regexps
> for which irregex is exponentially faster than PCRE.
> 
> -- 
> Alex
> 

Thank you Alex.  I understand, between all of this, that the bar is
raised on smaller changes (and it probably ought to be, it's easier
to bike shed a smaller change) but that usefully disruptive changes
can be larger and require a lower burden of proof for inclusion.

For the dubious purpose of pedantic completeness, This conversation
does not include any proof of your second paragraph: that these
exponentially faster regexps come up in practice: there's no citation
of data or test cases to back up such an assertion.

I did, for the first time this week, use a feature of irregex that
was more than straightforward translation of a regex into irregex
syntax.  It was a light-bulb moment for me, as I was previously
using irregex as a drop-in replacement and not appreciating it, for
what I suspect are all the reason you're motivated to participate in
this conversation.
.

-Alan
-- 
.i ma'a lo bradi cu penmi gi'e du