[fpc-pascal] My favourite missing feature

[Mark Morgan Lloyd]

Jürgen Hestermann wrote:
>> To use grep, sed, awk, or a text editor effectively, one must
>> understand regular expressions.  
> 
> Maybe. I never used them (except a text editor of course). Everything 
> you can do with these tools is also possible with a good Pascal compiler 
> (and much more).

Very true, I'd not deny that for a moment. However what's better: a 
single regex expressing a pattern to underlying well-tested code or ten 
lines of "classic" Pascal doing the same job? Cryptic though regular 
expressions are I'd suggest that the latter case has far more scope for 
coding error or for misinterpretation by a maintainer.

-- 
Mark Morgan Lloyd
markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk

[Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues]