Re: [PATCH] Add shell-quasiquote.

[John Wiegley]

>>>>> Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> writes:

>> I am not a fan of non-POSIX shells. They are a hassle to deal with and can
>> cause significant problems in Emacs maintenance. In areas where they are a
>> significant problem, we don't need to support them. But this particular
>> instance is not a significant problem. Emacs already has a portable,
>> tested, easy-to-use function to quote shell arguments, and there's good
>> reason to use it here.

> I completely agree with everything Paul wrote here.

Taylan,

I hope these comments will be viewed as an effort to be constructive, rather
than dismissive of your work or effort in any way.

We have good reason to suspect functions that might duplicate multiple decades
of prior art. Until now, shell quoting has been working nicely, so you can
imagine we are a touch skeptical of the need to rewrite it at this stage.

However, if you can produce some test cases that show a deficiency in
shell-quote-argument, you'll have done several useful things for us:

  1. Produced a test case covering an untested area;
  2. Helped us understand a deficiency in code we had completely trusted;
  3. Given us an opportunity to fix that code, benefiting all its users;
  4. Allowed us to provide you with a working shell-quote-argument, so you
     needn't waste further time at that level.

This is our hope; it is not meant to discourage you, or emphasize who is wrong
about what details. Your energy and enthusiasm are of great value.

John