Re: Add some aliases for re-related functions

[Yuan Fu]

On May 2, 2020, at 3:29 PM, Alan Mackenzie <address@hidden> wrote:

Hello, Yuan.

On Sat, May 02, 2020 at 14:28:08 -0400, Yuan Fu wrote:

While debating whether it’s effective to add prefixes to increase
discoverability, lets start with incremental and uncontroversial
changes.

Ha!  No chance!  ;-(

I don't believe these proposed changes will increase discoverability to
any important extent.  More importantly, they will decrease the
usability of these functions, as they will be more of a hassle to type
in and (more importantly) make the functions they are in more difficult
to read.

Let’s start from re-related functions since it seems that many people
agree on this. Here is a list of functions that I think could benefit
from an alias. 

replace-regexp-in-string re-replace-in-string
replace-match re-replace-match
string-match re-search-in-string
string-match-p re-match-in-string-p
match-string re-matched-string
match-string-no-properties re-matched-string-no-properties
match-beginning re-match-beginning
match-end re-match-end

looking-at re-match-after-point
looking-back re-match-before-point
looking-at-p re-match-after-point-p
posix-search-forward re-posix-search-forward
posix-search-backward re-posix-search-backward
posix-looking-at re-posix-looking-at
posix-search-in-string re-posix-search-in-string

Let’s do it like this: if you don’t like adding alias to a certain
function (strongly), call it out and we will remove it from the list
for now.

I strongly object to those aliases which make the function name longer.
I particularly object to `re-match-after-point' for `looking-at'.  Not
only is it much longer, it lacks the instant readibility of looking-at,
and the slightly humorous notion of "looking", as though with ones eyes.
I particularly object to `re-matched-string', which has double the
number of syllables in it as the original.

As a small point, you've erased the commonality between
match-beginning/end and match-string.  This is a bad thing.

Then we should have a small list that everybody agrees upon (or at
least no one absolutely hates). 

I hate your list.  ;-)  (Nothing personal in that.)

And please do not drift the topic away in this thread, which hinders
the original purpose of the thread. Let’s focus on these functions and
only these functions.

As long as people do not take for granted that introducing lots of
aliases is a good thing.  I believe it is not.

Yuan

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).

That’s ok. I guess my plan failed. 

Yuan