On Tue, 2010-06-29, Stephen Hansen wrote: > On 6/29/10 5:41 AM, Roy Smith wrote: >> Nobody<nob...@nowhere.com> wrote: >> >>>> And what about regular expressions? >>> >>> What about them? As the saying goes: >>> >>> Some people, when confronted with a problem, think >>> "I know, I'll use regular expressions." >>> Now they have two problems. >> >> That's silly. RE is a good tool. Like all good tools, it is the right >> tool for some jobs and the wrong tool for others. > > There's nothing silly about it. > > It is an exaggeration though: but it does represent a good thing to keep > in mind.
Not an exaggeration: it's an absolute. It literally says that any time you try to solve a problem with a regex, (A) it won't solve the problem and (B) it will in itself become a problem. And it doesn't tell you why: you're supposed to accept or reject this without thinking. How can that be a good thing to keep in mind? I wouldn't normally be annoyed by the quote, but it is thrown around a lot in various places, not just here. > Yes, re is a tool -- and a useful one at that. But its also a tool which > /seems/ like an omnitool capable of tackling everything. That's more like my attitude towards them. /Jorgen -- // Jorgen Grahn <grahn@ Oo o. . . \X/ snipabacken.se> O o . -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
