The Joys Of Data-Driven Programming

[Rustom Mody]

On Monday, August 22, 2016 at 12:24:30 AM UTC+5:30, Tim Chase wrote:
> On 2016-08-21 04:53, Rustom Mody wrote:
> > 2. Basic computing theory shows that re-s and dfas are equivalent.
> > Which would one prefer to write/debug? [Thats not a rhetorical
> > question]
> 
> I'm curious where REs and DFAs are shown to be equivalent (serious,
> not trying to be snarky).  I can see with no trouble that all REs are
> DFAs, but can't convince myself that *all* DFAs are REs.  Though this
> might also depend on the RE engine.  Do you have links to resources
> on such an "all REs have equivalent DFAs and all DFAs have equivalent
> REs" logic/argument?  Or maybe my understanding of DFAs is flawed.
> 
> And as for which I prefer to write, for simple text-processing that
> doesn't involve nesting, I generally prefer REs; but for more complex
> processing, a custom DFA tends to expand a bit more cleanly in my
> experience.
> 
> -tkc

A recent thread has some links on this:
 https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2016-July/712046.html

Some of the responses to that (Ben Bacarisse??) found better links than mine apparently

Also ragel is a tour-de-force that exploits this:
http://www.colm.net/open-source/ragel/