From: "Michael W. Ryder" <_mwryder@...>
Date: 2006-07-29T04:35:05+09:00
Subject: Re: Slow regular expressions :(

Alexandru E. Ungur wrote:
>>>> sender: "Michael W. Ryder" date: "Fri, Jul 28, 2006 at 07:30:11PM +0900" <<<EOQ
>> What's wrong with people wanting to improve a language?  
> Nothing. In this case however we are not talking about improving,
> but about making the regexp engine to be more forgiving, so that
> we can be less careful when crafting a regex.
> I wouldn't prefer Ruby to think for me, and I very much like when
> it says: " - You moron, look what you did: I'm gonna stay stuck on 
> this regex for 56783.99 years, and all because of you!! Can you
> even wait that long?!?" so that slowly I become less of a moron...
> I would definitely not like it to say: " - All is good, feed me crap,
> I can take it. I have a good stomach.", and let me go away with it.
> But maybe that's just me...
> 
> I'm not against evolution, I just see it differently.
> 
> Alex
> 

So you are saying that Ruby should only be used by those who can craft a 
perfect Regexp, all others need not bother?  Personally, I choose a 
language by how well it will do the job, not how arcane it is.  Maybe 
you would be happier with APL where you can write an entire program in a 
single line.  Very few other people will ever be able to read it, much 
less maintain it.
Computer Languages are supposed to make it easier to accomplish a 
purpose, not force you to think about the details.  If I wanted to have 
to spend hours fine tuning a single line of code so that it would run in 
a reasonable amount of time I would use Assembly.  People should not 
have to spend a large amount of time trying to learn "features" in a 
language to become productive.  They should be able to create a 
"reasonable" program quickly and then spend time later, if they have it 
which most of us don't, to make it better.