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> if ripgrep were a 100% drop-in replacement for something like GNU grep, then there would be basically no point for it to exist in the first place. That seems
by geezerjay 9y ago
> if ripgrep were a 100% drop-in replacement for something like GNU grep, then there would be basically no point for it to exist in the first place.
That seems to miss a huge lesson: backward compatibility eases transition, new features retain users.
Therefore, your assertion makes only sense if there would be no point in attracting existing users to use a tool whose added value is entirely irrelevant.
- burntsushi 9y agoIt doesn't miss any lesson. It's a trade off. The headline feature involves a default mode of operation that's fundamentally incompatible with GNU grep. Full stop. ripgrep is an evolution on ag, which in turn is an evolution on ack. All three tools have similar defaults, so in fact, ripgrep preserves some amount of backward compatibility with previously established tools in terms of the default mode of operation. Just not GNU grep. This goes further in that the intersection between ripgrep's features/flags and GNU grep's features is quite large---certainly much larger than the differences between them, which is just another form of preserving backward compatibility. This was done on purpose for exactly the lesson you're claiming I missed: backward compatibility eases transition. (The context of this conversation was a 100% backward compatible version of ripgrep with GNU grep. See my other comments on ROI. Just because I can argue against 100% backward compatibility doesn't mean I've missed the importance of backward compatibility.)