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A comment on RE#: how we built the fastest regex engine in F#.

Re:RE#: how we built the fastest regex engine in F# by noelwelsh on Wednesday March 04, 2026 @07:28AM (#47246531)
I love regular expression derivatives. One neat thing about regular expression derivatives is they are continuation-passing style for regular expressions. The derivative is "what to do next" after seeing a character, which is the continuation of the re. It's a nice conceptual connection if you're into programming language theory.

Low-key hate the lack of capitalization on the blog, which made me stumble over every sentence start. Great blog post a bit marred by unnecessary divergence from standard written English.

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Re:RE#: how we built the fastest regex engine in F# by u_sama on Wednesday March 04, 2026 @08:51AM (#47247395)
in what is it different ?
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Re:RE#: how we built the fastest regex engine in F# by murkt on Wednesday March 04, 2026 @09:31AM (#47247896)
Starts of sentences are not capitalized, which makes it a bit harder to read. English language prescribes capitalization after a period.
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Re:RE#: how we built the fastest regex engine in F# by spankalee on Wednesday March 04, 2026 @01:28PM (#47251714)
It's so uncomfortable to read.

Why do people do this? They capitalize names, so clearly their shift key works. Do they do it feel special or like some sort of rebel?

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Re:RE#: how we built the fastest regex engine in F# by trashface on Wednesday March 04, 2026 @02:53PM (#47252902)
Maybe they drafted it on a phone where capitalization is harder. My guess is the all-lowercase world is mostly people who do most of their text creation on phones and similar, not keyboards.
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Re:RE#: how we built the fastest regex engine in F# by layer8 on Wednesday March 04, 2026 @03:01PM (#47253014)
I don’t really see how capitalization is harder on phones, I do it all the time.
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Re:RE#: how we built the fastest regex engine in F# by chii on Thursday March 05, 2026 @09:05AM (#47261690)
if you turned on the autocorrects and spell checks etc, would automatically capitalize your sentences. Even when you don't want them to!
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Re:RE#: how we built the fastest regex engine in F# by gfody on Thursday March 05, 2026 @01:28AM (#47258255)
some folks prefer the aesthetic of lowercase and find capitalization unnecessary and ugly
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Re:RE#: how we built the fastest regex engine in F# by ieviev on Wednesday March 04, 2026 @01:47PM (#47251998)
While i completely understand it, the lack of capitalization is just an indication that a human wrote this, it has to be imperfect

i see enough slop and Look At Me on a daily basis. i don't want it to look like an ad or a LinkedIn post in 2026.

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Re:RE#: how we built the fastest regex engine in F# by noelwelsh on Wednesday March 04, 2026 @03:25PM (#47253309)
No one will mistake your posts for LinkedIn slop. You actually have something to say, with coherent arguments presented in paragraphs containing multiple sentences.

If you want sentences without capitalization to be your thing, then go for it. It's just a weird hill to die on, taking away from the readability of your posts for no real reason.

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Re:RE#: how we built the fastest regex engine in F# by ieviev on Wednesday March 04, 2026 @04:12PM (#47253925)
In all honesty it's just never bothered me before and i've havent met many people bothered by it either

It's the same thing with dark mode as default, i chose it because it's my own preference and i'd love it everywhere, but i'm constantly being flashbanged by phone apps because someone decided #FFFFFF is a good background color while the app is loading.

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Re:RE#: how we built the fastest regex engine in F# by layer8 on Wednesday March 04, 2026 @03:02PM (#47253021)
I’m sorry, but omitting capitalization is slop as well, just not AI slop. I can’t read text like that for any length of time, it’s just super crappy.
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Re:RE#: how we built the fastest regex engine in F# by UltraSane on Thursday March 05, 2026 @10:51AM (#47263097)
Refusing to use standard capitalization just looks unprofessional.
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Re:RE#: how we built the fastest regex engine in F# by voxl on Thursday March 05, 2026 @10:58AM (#47263196)
It's your personal style. Researchers have their quirks, don't listen to the industry suits saying dumb shit like "it's unprofessional" you can mask if you're looking for a job at Google in the future, but for now enjoy being yourself and say fuck you to the lazy socially imposed dogma of this particular community
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Re:RE#: how we built the fastest regex engine in F# by gfody on Thursday March 05, 2026 @11:35AM (#47263779)
<3
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