Discussion: Hear with arguments

[stahnma]

Is there a reason that hear isn't allowed to have arguments? Like is that a design decision or an odd technical limitation? I haven't dug into it too far yet, but thought I'd ask before I started working it up.

I dislike having to address the bot directly for...many things. I'm pretty used to hubot and it's flexibility so trying to see what I can do to get some of the core functionality to have parity.

[wass3r]

i'd say it was initially built like that "by design", but i wouldn't call the current hear implementation complete. as was discussed elsewhere, capturing groups would be a nice addition, for example. We just never got to it and the push/demand was small.

most folks i know are using respond and a few of the hear users make do with what they can do within the limitations or offload additional parsing to <insert your favorite scripting language>.

also worth mentioning that we eventually want to have other triggers, eg. events such as emoji reactions, so this area might see more build-out and changes.

[wass3r]

this might be addressed with the referenced PR. if not, feel free to reopen. thanks again @justmiles