On Fri, 15 Mar 2019 00:12:29 +0000 Ralph Corderoy <ra...@inputplus.co.uk> wrote:
> > It would follow from Bjarni's argument, if accepted, that it is > > objectively correct (a strong claim!) to install programs in > > scripting languages on user systems only after first stripping > > comments from them (or perhaps even only after also running them > > through a compiler, where available). > > But sed, awk, perl, python, ... lex and parse once into an AST or > bytecode, removing the recurring cost of comments, etc. that impact > groff. So I don't think it's an even comparison. Of course it's a valid comparison. Which sed or awk or shell script is distributed in a stripped/compressed form? Do they store their AST somewhere, so as to avoid recompilation? They do not. Just as with groff, every parse starts anew. --jkl
