String Pattern Matching: regex and Python regex documentation

[Steve Holden]

Xah Lee wrote:
> Xah Lee wrote:
> « the Python regex documentation is available at:
>  http://xahlee.org/perl-python/python_re-write/lib/module-re.html ...»
> 
> Jürgen Exner wrote:
> «Yeah, sure, and the Perl regex documentation is available at 'perldoc
> perlre'.  So what? Is that anything new or surprising?»
> 
> It is of interest and new, because it is a rewrite of Python's
> documentation. And it is of interest to Perlers, because Perl and
> Python uses the same regex syntax.
> 
> The purpose of this rewrite, is to fix Python's lousy documentation,
> and to demonstrate a style of technical writing, where precision and
> clarity is the prime directive.
> 
> It demonstrates a style of documentation, where the philosophy is
> task-oriented and uses examples sans misgivings.  (in this aspect, it
> is similar to the style of Perl's official documentation.)
> 
> Further, the exposition style focuses on the manifestation of the
> language elements, as a piece of mathematics, a style often found in
> functional language's documentations. It is opposed to, treating the
> language as a state machine or compiler engine, which are often
> necessarily the approach of imperative languages's documentations.
> 
> This project was undertaken as a response to a challenge put forth to
> me with a $100 reward, on 2005-04-12 on comp.lang.python newsgroup. I
> never received the due reward.
> 
Your reading skills must be terrible. You never received the reward 
because it never became due. I offered you $100 if (I believe) five 
regular readers of c.l.py wrote me to say your version was an 
improvement on the original documentation.

So far (it's now been over a year since your publication, IIRC) not one 
single person has written to me. So while your version of the docs may 
have some merit, it certainly doesn't fulfil the advertised requirements 
for the reward. Which therefore isn't due.

regards
  Steve
-- 
Steve Holden       +44 150 684 7255  +1 800 494 3119
Holden Web LLC/Ltd          http://www.holdenweb.com
Skype: holdenweb       http://holdenweb.blogspot.com
Recent Ramblings     http://del.icio.us/steve.holden