On Thu, Oct 20, 2005 at 05:12:32PM -0700, Nate Wiger wrote:
> Every regex engine in every language uses $1 or \1. This includes Java,
> JavaScript, C, PHP, Python, awk, sed, the GNU regex libs, etc. Somehow
> other languages seem ok with this, because it's a widely-used convention.

This quibbling over $0 and $1 seems like rampant bikeshedding to me.
Given that @Larry has said that $0, $1, etc. correspond to $/[0], $/[1],
etc, if you want to keep $1 as the "first parenthesized part", then come
up with a compelling, concrete proposal for what to do with $/[0] (and
$0) keeping in mind that

        @array = /(foo)(bar)(baz)/;

has to do the right thing.

> That's not my wish; just that it's time to take "another look" at the
> list of changes to see where the real-world benefit is.

IMHO, self consistency is far and away more important than consistency
with perl5.

> If Perl 6 is going to be successful, this means it must change the
> fewest key things with the most benefits. This may mean some things that
> "aren't quite perfect" still don't get changed. (It also means lots of
> new stuff can still be added - I'm just talking change.)

I don't understand this. Change the fewest "key things" relative to
what? Perl5?  If so, why?  Is it not enough that perl5 programs will
still compile and run under perl6?

> Just food for thought... maybe I'm wrong...

I don't know about wrong, but you're certainly entering the game a
little late.

-Scott
-- 
Jonathan Scott Duff
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

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