recently back from vacations :)
>>>>> "Bruce" == Bruce Korb <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: Bruce> Paul Eggert wrote: >> M4's rules are sometimes painful, but the shell's are often worse. Bruce> No way. What is crucial in quoting rules is that they be Bruce> consistent. M4's are not. Second in importance is that they Bruce> be few in number. M4, si, shell, no! Your sentence makes no sense to me. M4 quotes are the most consistent one can design. The system is so simple, that it's even simplistic and fails to let us produce simple closing quotes in the output. But once that problem solved with quadrigraph, you end up with the most simple system you could imagine. My own grief wrt M4 is that programming properly in M4 is programming in a lazy language. But (i) the language itself does not promote Lazy Functional Programming enough, and (ii) (this is bound to (i)) the performances are very bad since it does not take advantage of all that can be done when compiling such languages. Bruce> If you assume shell functions, you will certainly save a lot of Bruce> unnecessary complexity. Definitely. I expect a lot from shell functions. Including saving space, and improving performances (with good shells).
