• vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de
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    4 days ago

    yes they can. I regularly do. Regexes aren’t hard to write, their logic is quite simple. They’re hard to read, yes, but they are almost always one-offs (ex, substitutions in nvim).

    • FizzyOrange@programming.dev
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      4 days ago

      Regexes aren’t hard to write, their logic is quite simple.

      He did say complex regex. A complex regex is not simple.

      • vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de
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        4 days ago

        yes, “complex” regexes are quite simple too. Complex regexes are long, not difficult. They appear complex because you have to “inline” everything. They really are not that hard.

        • FizzyOrange@programming.dev
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          4 days ago

          This is stupid pedantry. By that logic literally nothing is complex because everything is made up of simple parts.

          • vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de
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            4 days ago

            cryptic != complex. Are they cryptic? yes. Are they complex? not really, if you can understand “one or more” or “zero or more” and some other really simple concepts like “one of these” or “not one of these” or “this is optional”. You could explain these to a child. It’s only because they look cryptic that people think they are complex. Unless you start using backreferences and advanced concepts like those (which are not usually needed in most cases) they are very simple. long != complex

            • FizzyOrange@programming.dev
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              4 days ago

              Ok I can see you haven’t actually come across any complex regexes yet…

              (Which is probably a good thing tbh - if you’re writing complex regexes you’re doing it wrong.)