Comments on: Regular expressions are like broccoli…

By: Philip Graham

Philip Graham — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 16:53:00 +0000

Closures are like quantum mechanics, hardly anyone understands them but they’re always working in the background.

Unit testing is like getting up to go to the gym at 5:00am. It’s painful initially, but once you’ve done it a few times you feel better .

By: fa

fa — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 10:12:34 +0000

RegEx is like chocolate.
I want more

By: Simon H

Simon H — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 01:11:39 +0000

Also by coincidence, thedailywtf.com today supplied this quote from Jamie Zawinski:

Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use regular expressions." Now they have two problems.

I'm not saying I agree with that! Broccoli? You've just got to cook it right.

By: Martin Fjordvald

Martin Fjordvald — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 23:13:56 +0000

Classes are blueprints and functions are actually called methods when used with classes.

Unit testing is wasting money since you really can’t justify a huge yearly “maintenance” free for support and “upgrades” if you do them. They’re horribly, horribly evil I say.

By: elzapp

elzapp — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 19:51:11 +0000

I’m surprised that you don’t have a regexp guy in your class. There’s always someone with a bizarre liking for broccoli. Like me for instance. The problem is, my first solution is always a regexp, even if there is a lot better and more elegant ways to solve the problem.

By: Michael Kimsal

Michael Kimsal — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 18:03:23 +0000

As if my magic, this appeared on Slashdot today.

By: Bill Karwin

Bill Karwin — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 16:28:53 +0000

Unit testing is like flossing your teeth. Essential for good hygiene, hard for some people to get into the habit, but once you do have the habit it’s easy to do.

By the way, you shouldn’t ignore regular expressions. They’re really not that hard. Regular expressions are just a very compact notation for a finite state machine, which is like a flowchart.

I like Tom’s comment above. Make them code a state machine the long way, and then show them how a regular expression works the same way. If you think of a regular expression as the alternative to writing screenfulls of code, they don’t seem so hard.

By: elblogg » Blog Archive » Unit tests saves the day

elblogg » Blog Archive » Unit tests saves the day — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:25:50 +0000

[...] It feels very good to have proper knowledge that everything actually works properly after a refactoring like this. Unit testing is like love. It’ll keep you going when everything else fails. (citation) [...]

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 13:53:48 +0000

What on earth? No wonder you don’t have much interest in RegExp if you’re comparing them to green veg.

Why not just get them to do something using standard string manipulation and then show them how to do it with a RegExp in half the time with a fraction of the code? In fact, why not get half the class to do it with a RegExp and then once they’re finished get them to throw Broccoli at the remaing half whilst they try to complete the task!

The problem with regular expressions is unless you force yourself to use them regularly, you can always choose to ignore them and opt for a slower more painful route. The learning curve with RegExp is very steep, but once you get to a certain point it’s like running down hill with the wind behind you.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 13:47:20 +0000

Unit testing is a condom. You should wear one, but it could break.