EDIT: I've decided to PM the users I was talking with directly instead of hijacking this thread anymore - sorry!
EDIT2: Okay after popular demand - I've been asked to repost the thread publicly again
to promote more discussion around this topic / issue.
Hi SOTE,
I've taken the liberty of getting in touch with the creator of AHK Studio and I'm now building out the new syntax file to match v2 syntax
I will update you when it's finished - but it will likely be in at least a couiple months due to my limited time. Also, SciTE already has created a beta v2 lexer for syntax support (and quite possibly it has graduated from beta mode - however I didn't dig deeper into it).
SOTE wrote: ↑31 Mar 2019, 10:54
Nobody is stopping an individual user from jumping over to AHK v2. The question is more about forcing the entire AutoHotkey community into AHK v2, which is incomplete, and causing a lot of pain and problems. And for what? The satisfaction of using "new"? Slow merging, which is what is already being done, is debatably the better way to gently migrate the user base into using different syntax and provide legacy support for existing scripts and libraries.
Which one is it - no one is stopping someone from moving over to v2 OR people are forcing others to move to v2? Who is forcing who to move to v2? If a finalized v2 was released, its not like v1 will just disappear and no one will be able to access it. Naturally, people will start slowly moving over. It's not the satisfaction of using "new".. it's the benefits in functionality, syntax, and code flow that v2 offers and v1 does not. It's not like v2 as-is currently is just nice and shiny and new and that is the only benefit that it brings - it's mainly practical benefits, not superficial ones like it's "freshness" appeal. I guarantee you that once v2 comes out, people will still slowly move over and there will still be a ton of people asking v1-related questions for years to come. It probably won't be until v3 comes out that people start finally giving up their blood, sweat, and tears they have dropped into their awesome v1 scripts/programs/apps/etc.
Disagree. There is nothing stopping people from using AHK v2, yet most don't. That is a possible indicator of underlying issues with AHK v2 syntax, comparable functionality, not being seen as a big enough benefit, or ease of use. Forcing people to use something, is not the same as they wanting or liking to use something.
I for one have been hesitant to switch because of a lack of knowledge/education about how to do it. I initially thought I could only have v1 OR v2 installed, so once I switched over then I'd be stuck rewriting everything in v2. I don't have that time at the moment.. nor will I ever. I will likely be running v1 scripts for years to come, while I develop new things or similar counterparts in v2. I have been speaking with people, and interestingly a lot of them don't even know that v2 exists AT ALL! This is another thing stopping people from switching over. Another thing is that people are skeptical to put time into the v2 alpha release because it is still alpha and things (potentially big things? guess were not sure) could change in the final release. It already is working great for me though. One thing that I'm starting to realize is all the misinformation flowing around the community about v2. Perhaps we need a thread that is mean specifically for helping understand more about v2, implications of installing/using it alongside v1, major changes to be aware of, tools out there that support using v2 (editors, helper utilities, etc.) because contrary to your statement, each day i continue to find more things created for v2 or at least support it in the v1 counterpart.
Instead of talking about why we should stay with v1 support, we should be talking about how we can move support to v2, so that the community feels supported to make the switch. I think the falacy that there is not support for v2 (editors, etc.) needs to be annihilated - it's not true.. and before I started digging, I thought it was true because of other things I've read people saying about this issue. If you think backporting v2 into v1 is a great idea, then you should do it! I encourage that because I think that would be a cool project.. and you would surely learn a lot. Its just not something I see as a sustainable effort IMHO.. meaning I feel that once that project is finished, maybe many more will have switched over to v2 by then and possibly making your efforts not-so-important.. but maybe not.
Obviously we have differing opinions/viewpoints on this SOTE, and I respect what you are saying here and the discussions this is provoking. I wouldn't have started updating AHK Studio to v2 syntax yesterday if we didn't have this discussion.
jesswg:
Thank you for sharing that post by lexikos - it was very insightful. I appreciate all the work you have put in for this community and respect all the hard work you continue to do. I've personally learned a lot from your posts and tutorials - and am eternally grateful.
- @swagfag: I wrote a converter. The vast bulk of conversion affects whole individual lines: assignments ('var = value'), commands, directives, control flow statements (e.g. Loop). It's relatively easy to identify these lines and ignore other lines.
- Changes to functions/operators, which my converter script doesn't currently handle, I handled via custom RegExMatch/RegExReplace code. Further to that, my DllCall converter could be adapted to a general function converter. However, I converted all of my scripts without needing to write such a thing.
I looked into your post on v1 to v2 conversions and if Helgef is approving then I don't see how I wouldn't be either. It does seem like it still needs some significant work - I opted to NOT test it out because that thread seemed way too confusing (as others there expressed). I would love if you could condense your conversion script and all the libraries needed for it into one post at the top of that thread. This seems to be a massive undertaking - so nice work and keep at it!! Really cool that you are able to figure this out, as myself being quite a newb was having trouble using RegEx to convert a small selection of v1 to v2 commands.. I eventually figured it out, but can see how difficult it will be to translate everyone's differing style preferences and levels of programming skills into a consistently acceptable conversion. Excited to see how you tackle this problem (I believe in you)