From: Chad Perrin <perrin@...>
Date: 2007-09-05T22:42:24+09:00
Subject: Re: subject line

On Wed, Sep 05, 2007 at 12:32:01PM +0900, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
> Bill Kelly wrote:
> > From: "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" <znmeb@cesmail.net>
> >>
> >> Which reminds me ... I keep meaning to ask ... how *did* regular
> >> expressions morph from an undergraduate computer science concept into a
> >> "language" that *every* working programmer is expected to be able to
> >> read and write in his or her sleep? Let's debate *that*! ;)
> > 
> > grep, sed, awk, . . . perl, ruby, . . .
> > ?
> 
> Yes ... that part of it I know ... UNIX as a way for researchers to get
> lots of work done with text files, "grep" standing for "Generalized
> Regular Expression Processor", etc. The part I don't know is how it went
> from Kleene, an obscure computational structure equivalent to finite
> state machines, an exercise in undergraduate automata theory textbooks,
> etc., to a practical tool like "grep", and I don't know why it "caught on".

I don't know how it worked its way into a basic utility like grep, but I
figure it "caught on" because of how unbelievably useful it is.

-- 
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
Ben Franklin: "As we enjoy great Advantages from the Inventions of others
we should be glad of an Opportunity to serve others by any Invention of
ours, and this we should do freely and generously."