A single, general looping construct? (was: why no "do : until"?)

[Tim Peters]

[William Sonna]
> ...
> 1.  Wasn't the adoption Perl-style regex's essentially a tip
> of the hat to a widely used, widely understood (and refreshingly
> un-lippy) syntax?

I was there at the time, so I can speak from memory instead of speculation
<wink>:  your parenthetical comment comes closest.  Didn't care whether it
was widely used, didn't care about widely understood either, *did* care that
(kneejerk Perl detractors notwithstanding) the Perl5 regexp syntax was--
with small exceptions --the most rational, consistent and useful-in-practice
regexp notation around.    It sold itself on its merits.  Unlike, say, curly
braces, the use of which is akin to filling your pillow with garlic to keep
vampires away <wink>.

dear-lord-what-if-the-whitespace-mutates-someday-then-we'll-
    be-sorry-ly y'rs  - tim