Newsgroups: comp.lang.scheme
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!udel!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!bakul
From: bakul@netcom.com (Bakul Shah)
Subject: Re: Unix Weenies (formerly: Removing READ)
Message-ID: <bakulD4MsMD.4HI@netcom.com>
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
References: <bakulD4H8yp.EL8@netcom.com> <25Feb1995.021048.Alan@LCS.MIT.EDU> <bakulD4L23y.I25@netcom.com> <hbaker-2602950905210001@192.0.2.1>
Date: Sun, 26 Feb 1995 23:44:36 GMT
Lines: 23
Sender: bakul@netcom23.netcom.com

hbaker@netcom.com (Henry Baker) writes:

>In article <bakulD4L23y.I25@netcom.com>, bakul@netcom.com (Bakul Shah) wrote:

>> I doubt an S-expr can be designed to be as compact as a reg-expr
>> to do the same job.

>The redundancy of an S-expression should no longer be an issue.  If it
>bothers you, use compress/gzip/etc.

Compression doesn't help when I want to type in a regular
expression.  May be you find 
	[a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z0-9]*
harder to read/use/type than
	(sequence
	  (one-of (range #\a #\z) (range #\A #\Z))
	  (zero-or-more
	    (one-of (range #\a #\z) (range #\A #\Z) (range #\0 #\9))))
but I don't.  I do admit that you'd need something like the
latter form for specifying reg-expr of anything other than
character strings.

Bakul Shah
