Re: Command Languages Versus Programming Languages

On Tue, 19 Nov 2024 18:43:48 -0800
merlyn@stonehenge.com (Randal L. Schwartz) boring babbled:

"Lawrence" == Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:

>
Lawrence> Perl was the language that made regular expressions
Lawrence> sexy. Because it made them easy to use.
>
I'm often reminded of this as I've been coding very little in Perl these
days, and a lot more in languages like Dart, where the regex feels like
a clumsy bolt-on rather than a proper first-class citizen.

Regex itself is clumsy beyond simple search and replace patterns. A lot of
stuff I've seen done in regex would have better done procedurally at the
expense of slightly more code but a LOT more readability. Also given its
effectively a compact language with its own grammar and syntax IMO it should
not be the core part of any language as it can lead to a syntatic mess, which
is what often happens with Perl.