ack rocks

ask on 2007-03-24T04:08:58

I've mentioned it before, but ack really rocks. I've noticed that on both consulting and startup projects I use it almost exclusively over grep now.

As I slowly, very slowly, get out of the habit of making pipelines for my searches it's tremendously useful. Another habit I need to pick up to enjoy it even more is that ack has a proper regexp feature set. I realize grep does too, but I don't remember my owl book well enough to ever get much use out of them. Perl regexps on the other hand...

Anyway, if you haven't tried it before - go get it.

The svn repository and issue tracker is on google code. Or maybe Andy is using rt.cpan.org for bug tracking? I guess either will work... (?)

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Ack rocks indeed

duff on 2007-03-24T16:22:10

I logged into a system last night that had recently had its OS reinstalled and home directories restored from backup. When I went to look for something in the code that was in my home directory, I noticed that ack was no longer installed on the system. To quote my own email to the sysadmin:

Re:Ack rocks indeed

petdance on 2007-03-27T16:47:00

Do you have a ~/bin dir you carry around w/you via Subversion? Put ack-standalone into it. That's one of the reasons I made the standalone version.

Re:Ack rocks indeed

jdavidb on 2007-03-27T19:53:54

Do you have a ~/bin dir you carry around w/you via Subversion?

Do you? I've been trying to bring my entire home directory under version control with svn, and I'm seeing some benefits, but still struggling with layout. What all do you carry around with subversion, and can I entice you to journal about it and share insights? :)

Bug queue

petdance on 2007-03-27T16:54:54

Yes, I'm using RT for the bugs, and I'm using the Google Code tracker for feature requests.

The canonical home page for ack is at http://petdance.com/ack/, which always has the latest and has sign up links for the groups.