>TFA:

>> OnlyFans is getting out of the pornography business.

>HN:

> s/of the pornography //.

…is getting out business?

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

-- Jamie Zawinski

I didn't spot any regexes here.

Matching an exact string is also a valid regex, and I think the GP's simple attempt to use the substitution syntax illustrates JWZ's point even better than a more complex expression. There are so many ways of screwing it up that even a simple joke contained a bug.

The notation s/<regex1>/<regex2> is perl for "replace every instance matching regex1 by regex2. Literal strings are regexes that match only themselves.

Not just perl. Also sed, which is likely where perl got it from.

Not just sed. Also ed, which is where sed got it from.

Yes, indeed. :)

Patreon’s 2020 annual net revenue is estimated at $80M. Last year onlyfans did $375M net revenue and 2021 is…was projected at $1.2B

Without porn, onlyfans will do maybe $100M in 2022. It’s the difference between a $1.5B valuation and a $20B valuation.

I think they mean that it should be s/the pornography //, rather than s/of the pornography //, so it's "out of business."

But then you still have “getting”

  s/getting \(.* \)the pornography /going \1/

Happy now? :)

Ay, yes, I was, you know, just making an off-hand comment.

It would have been better to get a code review or to test before checking-in that incorrect code.