I personally didn’t really understand how to write regex until I understood “regular languages” properly, then it was obvious.
I’ve found that the vast majority of programmers today do not have any foundation in formal languages and/or the theory of computation (something that 10 years ago was pretty common to assume).
It used to be pretty safe to assume that everyone from perl hackers to computer science theorists understood regex pretty well, but I’ve found it’s increasingly a rare skill. While it used to be common for all programmers to understand these things, even people with a CS background view that as some annoying course they forgot as soon as the exam was over.
I’ve found that the vast majority of programmers today do not have any foundation in formal languages and/or the theory of computation (something that 10 years ago was pretty common to assume).
It used to be pretty safe to assume that everyone from perl hackers to computer science theorists understood regex pretty well, but I’ve found it’s increasingly a rare skill. While it used to be common for all programmers to understand these things, even people with a CS background view that as some annoying course they forgot as soon as the exam was over.