Re: Invalid Operating System

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From: A. Pagaltzis
Subject: Re: Invalid Operating System
Date: 18:38 on 17 Dec 2006
* demerphq <demerphq@xxxxx.xxx> [2006-12-17 19:10]:
> On 12/17/06, A. Pagaltzis <pagaltzis@xxx.xx> wrote:
> >Regular expressions are a language in their own right; they
> >should at least have their own kind of literal. Even Perl 5 is
> >not consistent enough in this regard.
> 
> Got an example?

    In the culture of computing, regex languages are mostly
    considered second-class citizens, or worse. "Real" languages
    like C and C++ will exploit regexes, but only through
    a strict policy of apartheid. Regular expressions are our
    servants or slaves; we tell them what to do, they go and do
    it, and then they come back to say whether they succeeded or
    not.

    [...]

    Coming from a C background, Perl has historically treated
    regexes as servants. True, Perl has treated them as trusted
    servants, letting them move about in Perl society better than
    any other C-like language to date. [...] We need to empower
    regexes with a sense of control (structure). It needs to be
    just as easy for a regex to call Perl code as it is for Perl
    code to call a regex.

    ---Larry Wall, Apocalypse 5

Regards,
-- 
Aristotle Pagaltzis // <http://plasmasturm.org/>;
There's stuff above here

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