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> Given the number of developers who spit on the floor as soon as they hear “regex” > If it is hard to developers, it is impossible to regular users. What are
by craftinator 6y ago
> Given the number of developers who spit on the floor as soon as they hear “regex”
> If it is hard to developers, it is impossible to regular users.
What are you talking about? Regular expressions are used everywhere. On the backend it's text parsing, on the front end it's input validation. I have never written a complete application without using it. You're also the first person I've heard grumble about them.
I get that if regex is used in an overly convoluted or messy fashion, they become unreadable and unreliable. Just like assignment operators, nested division, or any other basic programming construct. But they are also remarkably powerful at solving simple pattern matching in a robust way. I recommend you go learn them instead of making baseless claims about "the number of developers who spit on the floor" when talking about them or whatever.
- kaishiro 6y agoJust to throw another anecdote on top of yours, I've never worked in a shop where they weren't grumbled about from time to time - so I personally don't find the parent's claim to be baseless at all. Many developers struggle with the "language" of regex - and no matter how many times I "learn it", it doesn't change the fact that I have to pull up references every time I'm building out an expression. Grandparents post re: Excel had me curious actually - because I (personally) find the use of Left, Mid, Right, etc generally far more logical and readable than trying to parse a regex string.
- bombcar 6y agoEvery time I have to use Regex I muddle through various tutorials and try stuff until it seems to work. A horrible but practical way to use them. Being able to describe them in an Excel-like fashion and have it spit out a working Regex would be nice.