On Feb 27, 2020, at 10:13 AM, Seymour J Metz <sme...@gmu.edu> wrote: > > Don't confuse logic with habit; there is nothing illogical about regexen. > Yes, the syntax is clumsy and not nearly as readable as patterns in, e.g., > SNOBOL, but there's nothing magic about them, I could teach a bright > elementary school student to write simple regexen, although probably not to > read and write some of the more complicated ones I have dealt with. > > Now, not all change is progress, and if you were ranting against, e.g., C, I > might agree, but regexen do have redeeming social value. >
It feels like we’re overdue for someone to reference the (in)famous quote on regular expressions: “Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use regular expressions." Now they have two problems.” https://blog.codinghorror.com/regular-expressions-now-you-have-two-problems/ Often when I use regular expressions I get the feeling there’s a more elegant solution trying to escape in there somewhere, but I haven’t been able to come up with it yet. I suppose I should google SNOBOL; I’ve heard of it but never really investigated it. -- Pew, Curtis G curtis....@austin.utexas.edu ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
