lsm.syntax (Re: More documentation cleanups)

[Pavel Roskin <proski gnu org>]

Hi, Frédéric!

> > I believe it's a very bad idea to push any political agenda
> > by technical means of this kind.  It's not an excuse that the
> > existing file already does it.
>
> :-) OK. Let's say I don't want to encourage anyone writing
> Shareware. Anyway, it's listed as an option in LSM-TEMPLATE.

Still, it's not a function of the syntax checker.

> I also believe it's a bad idea to use 'linuxconf' and some other
> commands like 'taper' in the sh syntax file. IMO fileutils, sh-utils,
> textutils, util-linux and crucial packages that are part of any
> distribution should be enough.

I agree, but I also think that the syntax checker should not know about
any commands at all.  Otherwise it's not a _syntax_ checking.

> > By the way, why don't you want to highlight Begin3?  Just
> > because it's obsolete?
>
> Because I thought it was an example to write an accurate .lsm
> file. And since syntax highlighting doesn't work with F3 (could
> be used with ftpfs), I see no other reason to maintain Begin3.
> Of course, it'd be nice to maintain it and have a way to let
> the author know it was obsoleted by Begin4.

The editor works on VFS in the CVS version of MC (but please don't write
your love letters and resumes on VFS - I don't feel it has received a good
testing so far).

The editor has been ported from Cooledit, and I think that at the syntax
rules should be synchronized with Cooledit from time to time.  The actual
code except the syntax engine probably should not be synchronized anymore,
but it's debatable.

I believe that MC should not change the meaning of "syntax highlighting"
to something incompatible with Cooledit.  Maybe this should issue should
be discussed in the Cooledit mailing list (if it exists).

I feel uncomfortable that two separate groups of developers (MC and
Cooledit) may be discussing the same issues without talking to each other.

> > I think that the primary role of syntax highlighting should be
> > showing the role of the highlighted text, not spotting errors,
> > and certainly not determining the political correctness of
> > software licenses.
>
> Then another change is incorrect, and we should list
> sunsite.unc.edu, metalab.unc.edu, and ibiblio.org ? Also, any

I fail to see any reason to highlight URLs.  They should be checked in the
browser, not in the editor.

> better way to list .tar.Z tar.gz tar.bz2 ? I'd add 3 lines, but
> with \s*.tar.* it matches them (and anything else...).

Again I don't understand why they should be highlighted.

Perhaps somebody with an incorrect understanding of the word "syntax" (see
webster.com for the definition) put this lsm.syntax together and now you
are wasting your time trying to fix something broken by design.

-- 
Regards,
Pavel Roskin