Notices

1. shamar@qoto.org's status on Thursday, 16-Sep-2021 22:05:57 CEST Shamar

   I think that I miss something mysterious about #RegEx.

   I know them well, I use them often and yet, when I think about WHY they are so powerful and effective while being so cryptic, I cannot find a rigorous answer.

   I've explained them to people several times, but I was never happy with the explanation itself: it was effective for the people involved but listening to myself I was all "how can somebody understand what I mean by listening what I say?"

   Now when you cannot explain a subject clearly, you ALWAYS know that you do not understand it.

   But HOW CAN regular expression be so effective and still so cryptic? Why we can't have readable regular expression? (and we can't)

   What am I missing?

   • shamar@qoto.org's status on Friday, 17-Sep-2021 11:37:26 CEST Shamar

     • Ekaitz Zárraga 👹
     • K‮ly‬e

     @ekaitz_zarraga

     I suppose that, as @khird explained, if you try to turn them less cryptic, you largely reduce their advantage over a more general programming language.

     But don't get me wrong: I would be very happy to be proven wrong on this.