Re: What should /\08/ match and do?

On Tue, Jun 01, 2010 at 08:29:19PM +0200, demerphq wrote:
> On 1 June 2010 20:07, karl williamson <[email protected]> wrote:
> > demerphq wrote:
> >>
> >> On 1 June 2010 19:05, Eric Brine <[email protected]> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 6:45 AM, demerphq <[email protected]> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> IMO these days octal, and any other non parenthesized code-like
> >>>> escapes should be deprecated.
> >>>
> >>> A stylistic warning in ambiguous cases (like Abigail's "/\08/ interpreted
> >>> as
> >>> /\x{00}8/" warning) sounds like a good idea, but not a *deprecation*
> >>> warning. That would mean we're planning on removing octal support from
> >>> Perl,
> >>> and I haven't heard any reasons for doing that. Does supporting octal
> >>> escapes cause maintenance problems?
> >>
> >> Any non-parenthesized escape structure using numeric values is a
> >> maintenance problem when seen from the point of view of modifying or
> >> joining snippets of a regex together.
> >>
> >> cheers,
> >> Yves
> >>
> >>
> >
> > I thought this was all settled until this heated up again, so I was about to
> > submit patches to change \08, et. al., including the addition of \o{...}
> >  for an arbitrary length octal character constant.  (I'll wait for things to
> > settle down.)
> 
> When i said the above i meant for the USER of perl, not us perl
> authors. Yes there is a modest maintenance burden for US, but it pales
> in comparison to that affecting the user.

I agree.

I also think that perl should keep its opinion about whether my code is 
a maintenance burden or not for itself. *I* am the programmer, and the
language should bend to my wishes. Only *I* can make a decision on whether
the maintenance burden is something to worry about or not. If perl doesn't
like it, it should just close its eyes, and think of England.

If I want someones opinion about my code, I'd use a linter. I heard
perlcritic comes with a gazillion of opinions. (But I'm not short of
opinions myself, and hence I've never used perlcritic -- other than to
figure out what magic to sprinkle in my code to keep it silent (just in
case I'd ever find myself in a situation I need that)).



Abigail