Re: RFC 327 (v2) C\v for Vertical Tab
On Sun, Oct 01, 2000 at 10:24:58AM +0200, Bart Lateur wrote: difficult feature, is a lot harder than this kind of simple, er, shit. Actually, when I was first programming Perl after coming from C I was tripped up by this very difference, and didn't quite understand why \v wasn't an escape. I forget what I was using it for. I certainly haven't used vertical tab in a long time, and even back then I was probably using it for an escape sequence or something similar rather than as a tab. Perhaps there's a good reason it wasn't included, perhaps someone reading this thread even knows what that reason is. Perhaps not, and it would actually be a good idea to include it in Perl 6 to avoid the kinds of (small) problems I had with it. Referring to this RFC as "shit" just because it's simple seems rather harse. If the big RFCs are like creating new tools in your toolkit, or radically changing the way they work, this one is like taking out an old tool and filing off a sharp point from the handle so it doesn't poke you next time you use it. I can't see that as a bad thing. -- Jacob Davies [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RFC 327 (v2) C\v for Vertical Tab
On 29 Sep 2000 17:11:31 -0700, Russ Allbery wrote: Just out of curiosity, and I'm not objecting to this RFC, has anyone reading this mailing list actually intentionally used a vertical tab for something related to its supposed purpose in the past ten years? I agree. RFC's like this one seem like a complete waste of time to me. It's a pity that writing a complete, thorough RFC on a valuable but difficult feature, is a lot harder than this kind of simple, er, shit. (No hard feelings towards the authors.) So we end up retracting a lot of interesting RFC's, while keeping things like this. -- Bart.
Re: RFC 327 (v2) C\v for Vertical Tab
On Fri, Sep 29, 2000 at 05:29:26PM -0700, David Olbersen wrote: - -Original Message- - From: Russ Allbery [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] - Just out of curiosity, and I'm not objecting to this RFC, has anyone - reading this mailing list actually intentionally used a vertical tab for - something related to its supposed purpose in the past ten years? I don't even know what a vertical tab is, it doesn't sound like anything very useful. I've never used one, and I doubt I will (apart from including it in "\r\t\f\v \n" in any whitespace in parsing code I write in C) My reasoning was that one of the criticisms usually levelled against perl by its detractors was that it is confusing because there are so many special cases and irregularities. In my opinion "Double quoted strings have all the C backslash constructions (except \v)" is an irregularity, not a feature. Every non-useful irregularity removed aids advocacy, teaching and documenting, without hindering programming. Nicholas Clark
RE: RFC 327 (v2) C\v for Vertical Tab
- -Original Message- - From: Russ Allbery [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] - - Perl6 RFC Librarian [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: - - However, lack of C\v represents a special case for a C programmer to - learn. C\v isn't used for anything else in double quoted - strings, nor - is it used in regular expressions, so it won't require removal of an - existing feature to add it. Currently a C\v in a double - quoted strings - will be treated as Cv, with a warning about unknown escape issued if - warnings are in force. - - Vertical tab was also omitted from the range of characters considered - whitespace by C\s in regular expressions. - - Just out of curiosity, and I'm not objecting to this RFC, has anyone - reading this mailing list actually intentionally used a vertical tab for - something related to its supposed purpose in the past ten years? I don't even know what a vertical tab is, it doesn't sound like anything very useful.
Re: RFC 327 (v2) C\v for Vertical Tab
David Olbersen [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: From: Russ Allbery [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Just out of curiosity, and I'm not objecting to this RFC, has anyone reading this mailing list actually intentionally used a vertical tab for something related to its supposed purpose in the past ten years? I don't even know what a vertical tab is, it doesn't sound like anything very useful. It advances the paper of your hardcopy terminal a terminal-setting- defined number of lines, usually about eight. The last time I used a vertical tab intentionally and for some productive purpose was about 1984. -- Russ Allbery ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/
