To:	Matthew Wilcox <matthew@wil.cx>
Subject: "Anyone who likes complexity and fuzzy logic" (Re: [PATCH] headerdep:...)
User-Agent: slrn + jed (x86_64-pc-linux-glibc-debian)
Date:	Wed, 30 Apr 2008 19:57:16 +0200
X-OS:	x86_64-pc-linux-glibc-debian

Matthew Wilcox @ Sat, 26 Apr 2008 10:17:14 -0600:

> I think a more useful tool would be one which mapped something like
> 'use of down()' to 'needs to include '.  It needs
> to be at least somewhat done by hand because there are rules such
> as 'include linux/spinlock.h to get spinlock_t' (which is actually
> defined in linux/spinlock_types.h), but you want people to include
> directly rather than rely on it being pulled in
> through linux/sched.h, for example.
>
> It's further complicated by multi-file drivers, such as qla2xxx.  Each
> file includes qla_def.h which includes a lot of the necessary header
> files for them ... but then each file will include a few more header
> files that it needs.
(gee...)
> So some implicit includes are _good_ and other implicit includes are
> _bad_ (as they hurt when trying to rationalise the header files).
> Anyone who likes complexity and fuzzy logic like this want to take a
> stab at writing such a tool?

Why? Why GNU C compiler developers didn't do such (obviously useful)
tool? C compiler (some part of it) *is* responsible for parsing,
tokenizing, etc. Why there is development of never-ending buggy
optimizations only[0]?


Matthew, i know you've asked for regular expressions ninjas once, here
simple example.

Syntax highlighting for text editors is the most notable
invention/implementation for ease of programming in last 20 years or so.

Question: why any parser, e.g. GNU/FOSS [C, SED, AWK, ELISP], Perl,
Python, do NOT have option to output OWN highlighted syntax? Don't those
parsers know what they parse, rules, syntax errors, etc.[1]? (Note: at
least framework in parser, so that trivial extending/configuring would be
possible).


Is it really so complex?


=[0]= rant =[0]=

Isn't that hardware had developed in exponential rate toward speed and
cache/RAM size, so any bloat and huge volumes of sources without flexible
configuration systems (to download and work with e.g. only one GCC or
Linux port) are handled quickly?

=[1]= rant =[1]=

No, unreadable and buggy regexp-based highlighting is everywhere with
never-ending features added WRT basic regular expressions!

For those Perl hackers out there: why mister Wall is attributed to
invent non greedy RE match, why he did so by introducing non portable
and non-readable syntax to already crappy RE?

Simple BRE based idea: '\{0, s\}'. Just like `sed` had overcame second
RE basic pronciple: first-match, by using flags 's///here'.

No, let's invent crutches!

Oh, crap....
--
sed 'sed && sh + olecom = love' << ''
-o--=O`C
 #oo'L O
<___=E M