Re: A read-based grep-like for symbols (el-search?) (was Do shorthands break basic tooling (tags, grep, etc)? (was Re: Shorthands have landed on master))

[tomas]

On Fri, Oct 01, 2021 at 02:15:35PM +0100, João Távora wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 1, 2021 at 8:03 AM <tomas@tuxteam.de> wrote:
> 
> > All those "magic action at a distance" things (and name prefix
> > goes in that direction, but many things you see in contemporary
> > Web frameworks do this too) make life harder for the "grep
> > crowd".
> 
> Yes, of course.  So-called higher-level languages are all about
> indirection. Pointers, function pointers, late binding, garbage
> collectors, duck typing, namespaces,,, they all give us something and they
> take something away.  Every time.
> 
> Grep is a tool, a tool to search text [...]

I think we agree, basically. Note that I mentioned Coccinelle, which
goes deep into that direction.

> The first iteration of the tool I'm thinking of answers questions like
> what is referenced by source code, today.  It doesn't answer "what could
> someday be referenced when one uncomments lines".  A symbol name stuck
> in a comment probably shouldn't be there, at least not in Shorthand
> form.  And anyway Shorthands don't operate on comments, so the point
> may be moot.  So the answer is that it can be done, but not in this first
> iteration.  I will think about it, though.

Actually I wasn't specifically thinking about a source code snippet
hidden in a comment, but more of a text explaining things about a
variable or function. I like grep to find those, too :-)

[...]

> Yes.  The things that said here are taken into consideration ;-) And yes I
> use grep.  To "wade" into your delightful image, it's like using made-up
> sign language in a foreign country: it'll get you places, but you won't
> be reading the classics or chatting up the bear that wants to eat you.

nice image :)

Cheers
 - t

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