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> I find regex easier to write than to read. There is nothing new under the sun. Joel, 22 years ago: There’s a subtle reason that programmers always want to
by pif 4y ago
> I find regex easier to write than to read.
There is nothing new under the sun.
Joel, 22 years ago:
There’s a subtle reason that programmers always want to throw away the code and start over. The reason is that they think the old code is a mess. [...] The reason that they think the old code is a mess is because of a cardinal, fundamental law of programming: It’s harder to read code than to write it.
https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never-do-part-i/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-...
- stackbutterflow 4y agoI say that because there's a meme that nobody writes regex and that everyone copy-paste it from stackoverflow.
- Tijdreiziger 4y agoAnd the corollary: since code is harder to read than write, steer clear of writing clever code where simple code would suffice, as the clever code will be much harder to read.
- MontyCarloHall 4y agoJoel is 100% spot on. This is exactly why I don’t think things like Copilot will catch on. Making programming involve less writing code and more reading code actually makes the job more difficult.