[H-GEN] Text Search and Replace @ shell prompt

[Greg Black]

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Jason Parker-Burlingham wrote:

| Greg Black <gjb at gbch.net> writes:
| 
| > I think it's better to get the problem specified than to provide
| > all-singing answers that still run a real risk of not actually doing
| > what's wanted.
| 
| Sadly I see too many people using the sort of thing you suggested,
| thinking it's good enough, until of course they find out it's not.
| 
| Providing a partial solution is a good way to get the problem
| specified---even if it means someone coming back and saying "well, no,
| that didn't do <x> quite right".  I thought we were doing pretty much
| the same thing, all told.

Yes, I think we were doing pretty much the same thing.  I guess
I was suggesting that a really simple solution, such as my ed
thing, is a better starting point because it is so simple and it
then naturally leads towards a proper solution.  I certainly see
no problem with gradually refining a solution until it converges
on the desired outcome.

| (Basically I think one can't beat the "don't use regexes on HTML" drum
| too much, especially since there are much better tools;

I'm not really convinced by this.  I think you can do more with
RE's (especially where you can use them interactively to accept
or reject the selections) than people often realise.  Of course,
there is a whole class of stuff that you just cannot do with
RE's, but I suspect that a general statement that they're not
usable with HTML is overkill.

| I stepped in
| predominately because this sort of job was something I used to do on a
| daily basis, and something you've recently said you don't.)

I'm pleased that you did, as you've probably provided people
with some extra ideas for solving a general class of problem and
that seems an excellent outcome.  Hopefully, between us, we've
given list subscribers a range of approaches to use for some of
the text manipulation problems they might have.

Greg

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