earthquake changes of std.regexp to come

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

BCS wrote:
> Reply to Andrei,
> 
>> I'm quite unhappy with the API of std.regexp. It's a chaotic design
>> that provides a hodgepodge of functionality and tries to use as many
>> synonyms of "to find" in the dictionary (e.g. search, match). I could
>> swear Walter never really cared for using regexps, and that is felt
>> throughout the design: it fills the bullet point but it's asinine to
>> use.
>>
>> Besides std.regexp only works with (narrow) strings and we want it to
>> work on streams of all widths and structures. One pet complaint I have
>> is that std.regexp puts a class around it all as if everybody's
>> favorite pastime would be to inherit Regexp and override some random
>> function in it.
>>
>> In the upcoming releases of D 2.0 there will be rather dramatic
>> breaking changes of phobos. I just wanted to ask whether y'all could
>> stomach yet another rewritten API or you'd rather use std.regexp as it
>> is for the time being.
>>
>> Andrei
>>
> 
> For what it's worth, I have a partial clone of the .NET API built on top 
> of PCRE. I would have to ask my boss but I expect I could donate it if 
> anyone want to use it as a basis.

That would be cool; I find the engine in std.regexp rather hard to 
understand.

Andrei