Regular expressions

[Michael Torrie]

On 11/02/2015 09:23 PM, rurpy--- via Python-list wrote:
> On 11/02/2015 08:51 PM, Michael Torrie wrote:
>> [...]
>> Indeed, sometimes Jamie Zawinski's is often quite appropriate:
>>
>>     Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use
>> regular expressions." Now they have two problems.
> 
> Or its sometimes heard paraphrase:
>   Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use
>   Python." Now they have two problems
> The point being it's a cute and memorable aphorism but not very meaningful
> because it can be applied to anything one wishes to denigrate.
> 
> Of course there are people who misuse regexes. But I am quite sure,
> especially in the Python community, there are just as many who fail to
> use them when they are appropriate which is just as bad.

Judging by a few posts on the list lately, I'd say it is highly relevant
to Python itself.  Too many people have only a vague notion of a problem
they'd like to solve and although they don't really understand the
problem, they've heard Python is a good language to learn, so they ask
how they can solve that problem with Python.

Now, this certainly can work for a person who's already experienced in
several languages and who already understands the problem.  For others,
it's very much now two intractable problems.