On 06/03/2011 07:17 AM, Neil Cerutti wrote: > On 2011-06-03, ru...@yahoo.com <ru...@yahoo.com> wrote: >> The other tradeoff, applying both to Perl and Python is with >> maintenance. As mentioned above, even when today's >> requirements can be solved with some code involving several >> string functions, indexes, and conditionals, when those >> requirements change, it is usually a lot harder to modify that >> code than a RE. >> >> In short, although your observations are true to some extent, >> they are not sufficient to justify the anti-RE attitude often >> seen here. > > Very good article. Thanks. I mostly wanted to combat the notion > that that the alleged anti-RE attitude here might be caused by an > opposition to Perl culture. > > I contend that the anti-RE attitude sometimes seen here is caused > by dissatisfaction with regexes in general combined with an > aversion to the re module. I agree that it's not that bad, but > it's clunky enough that it does contribute to making it my last > resort.
But I questioned the reasons given (not as efficient, not built in, not often needed) for dissatisfaction with REs.[*] If those reasons are not strong, then is not their Perl-smell still a leading candidate for explaining the anti-RE attitude here? Of course the whole question, lacking some serious group-psychological investigation, is pure speculation anyway. ---- [*] A reason for not using REs not mentioned yet is that REs take some time to learn. Thus, although most people will know how to use Python string methods, only a subset of those will be familiar with REs. But that doesn't seem like a reason for RE bashing either since REs are easier to learn than SQL and one frequently sees recommendations here to use sqlite. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
