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From: Charles Forsyth <forsyth@terzarima.net>
To: 9fans@9fans.net
Subject: Re: [9fans] non greedy regular expressions
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 10:18:57 +0000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <45432371edb2231a8b90975a0efdf7bb@terzarima.net> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <dd6fe68a0810262155s732d9a1dhbbf46dc443a4d339@mail.gmail.com>

>Both systems are complex enough that essentially no one completely understands them.

this touches on an important point. the first introduction of regular expressions
to editors was great, because it took some formal language theory and made it useful
in an `every day' way. conversely, the theory provided significant underpinning (in a structural
sense) to that practical application.  now there are big books on `regular expressions'
mainly because they are no longer regular but a big collection of ad-hoc additions.
(i think there is a similarity to Perl's relationship to the history of programming languages.)
the result really is hard to reason about ... because it hasn't got that underpinning and the algebra has gone.
it's worse than that: the code is a mess too, i supposed in consequence.



  parent reply	other threads:[~2008-10-27 10:18 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 45+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2008-10-23 18:58 Rudolf Sykora
2008-10-23 19:05 ` erik quanstrom
2008-10-24  8:08   ` Rudolf Sykora
2008-10-24 12:23     ` erik quanstrom
2008-10-24 16:11       ` Rudolf Sykora
2008-10-24 16:54         ` erik quanstrom
2008-10-24 17:02         ` John Stalker
2008-10-24 17:15           ` Rob Pike
2008-10-24 17:41           ` Rudolf Sykora
2008-10-24 18:01             ` Russ Cox
2008-10-24 19:56               ` Rudolf Sykora
2008-10-24 21:10                 ` Russ Cox
2008-10-24 21:40                   ` Rudolf Sykora
2008-10-24 21:47                     ` erik quanstrom
2008-10-24 22:04                       ` Rudolf Sykora
2008-10-24 22:38                         ` Gabriel Diaz Lopez de la Llave
2008-10-24 22:54                         ` Charles Forsyth
2008-10-24 22:59                           ` Charles Forsyth
2008-10-24 23:52                         ` Tom Simons
2008-10-25 22:35                           ` Rudolf Sykora
2008-10-25 23:02                             ` Steve Simon
2008-10-26  8:57                             ` John Stalker
2008-10-26 18:36                               ` Eris Discordia
2008-10-27  4:55                             ` Russ Cox
2008-10-27  8:28                               ` Rudolf Sykora
2008-10-27 10:18                               ` Charles Forsyth [this message]
2008-10-27 13:13                                 ` Eris Discordia
2008-10-27 13:23                                   ` erik quanstrom
2008-10-27 19:42                                     ` Eris Discordia
2008-10-27 16:13                                   ` Brian L. Stuart
2008-11-30  8:29                             ` Yard Ape
2008-12-11 16:32                               ` Rudolf Sykora
2008-10-24 18:02             ` John Stalker
2008-10-24 17:10         ` Uriel
2008-10-24 19:56         ` Charles Forsyth
2008-10-24 19:56           ` Rudolf Sykora
2008-10-26 21:23             ` Rob Pike
2008-10-24 11:27 Aharon Robbins
2008-10-27 19:23 Aharon Robbins
2008-10-27 20:15 ` Eris Discordia
2008-10-27 20:00 Eris Discordia
2008-10-28 14:51 ` Brian L. Stuart
2008-10-28 15:07   ` Eris Discordia
2008-10-27 21:08 Aharon Robbins
2008-10-28 14:53 ` Eris Discordia

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