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Yes, thank you. If you're sloppy with words you probably have other nasty habits. (apologies to Heinlein) There are reasons to employ regular languages with
by earleybird 5y ago
Yes, thank you.
If you're sloppy with words you probably have other nasty habits. (apologies to Heinlein)
There are reasons to employ regular languages with extensions (to not quite context free languages) but be clear about what you're talking about.
- bawolff 5y agoI'd argue that if this is sloppy, then the use of "you" instead of "thou" is sloppy too. Using "you" for everything is confusing. How can i possibly know if you mean plural or singular? Sure some people might say "thou" is archaic, however so is using "regex" outside of academic contexts to mean regular languages. I don't see how one could justify one but not the other.
- efitz 5y agoGrammar sticklers usually fail on this point: human languages are not static, stuck in place from the time the stickler learned the rules. The current state of a human language is defined by common usage. The purpose of a language is for people to be able to communicate ideas. Ideas exist all up and down a specificity spectrum, e.g. “regex” might mean a specific syntax or one of several syntaxes depending on context. Kind of like “kleenex” might refer to a specific brand or to the general concept of tissue. If 99.9% of people successfully (by their own measure, not yours) communicate what they mean when they use the term “regular expression”, but you are among the 0.1% for which that interaction fails, then I would argue that the problem is your pedantry, not the term. I’m not saying this to be mean; I have similar issues.