If buying a tool for $20 gets the job done just as well and saves the "few hours" of learning how to do it so-called "properly", it seems like the correct decision to me.

Based purely on this one single comment (which isn't much to go on to be fair) I wouldn't be giving someone like you too much broad authority on a project because you lack wise judgement skills in my opinion.

Since you mention laughing at people, you may not be aware of it, or care, but people ("idiot" managers and "idiot" users) might very well laugh at you behind their backs as well. If you lack perspective, the ability to consider issues from the point of view of different stakeholders, you're going to see a lot of idiots around you.

You sound quite offended, that was not my intention.

If you consider it wise judgment to pay money to spend a few hours to learn a less flexible, leakier abstraction rather than just spending the few hours, and gaining a lifetime skill, learning the high powered, free tool available, that is where we differ.

I don't laugh at people who don't know something, quite the contrary, there is little I love more than helping someone grow in knowledge. I laugh at a worldview that celebrates ignorance as if it were a virtue.

I have no doubt people laugh at me too, probably because I believe anyone can be better than they are, anyone can improve. I have high expectations for myself and those around me. And that, for a person who chooses a worldview that celebrates ignorance, can only be met with derisive laughter and ad hominem attacks.

Not offended, just tired of, in my perception, the air of absolute certainty among so many technical people.

A bit beyond the scope of this particular discussion, what does offend me is when people (not you perhaps) are constantly learning these life long skills on the client's dime. Some things it is fair/correct/righteous to learn and bill as part of a project, but when it isn't, I'll take the $20 approach every time.

It offends me when technical people are dishonest and insist that the "technically correct and proper" way is the path that must be taken, not the approach that should be taken. Or, they don't even inform the client of the option and just secretly make the decision to take the more expensive route. Again, not saying this is you, but it sure as hell happens.

By the way, who here is celebrating ignorance? Scott Hanselman?

OK, I see where you are coming from now.

I agree, stealing from a client, that's still stealing. When I learn new tools/skills, I learn them on my own time unless there is an explicit understanding, $20 or not. I consider such things a "sharpen your saws" sort of activity, and that is best done in isolation from the crunch of deadlines anyway.

As to Scott's writings, yes, that is what I was referring to. I get a distinct vibe from some of his writings that goes like: "we are mediocre, and that's okay, let's laugh it off!" Which is odd, considering some of his other writings which strongly imply that is not really what he thinks. Perhaps he just has sharp sense of self-deprecating humor. Perhaps he is just trying to be relatable to a community not known for exploration. Either way, I feel like it confuses his message. Mountains out of molehills, perhaps, but lately I have been trying to read text more carefully, looking for worldviews, which has added a new layer of depth to even development blogs.

> I consider such things a "sharpen your saws" sort of activity, and that is best done in isolation from the crunch of deadlines anyway.

Kudos to you for that attitude, and I wish it was more widespread. Too many developers lose that attitude develop a sense of entitlement not very far into their career.

> As to Scott's writings, yes, that is what I was referring to. I get a distinct vibe from some of his writings that goes like: "we are mediocre, and that's okay, let's laugh it off!"

I'd attribute that moreso to self-deprecating humor. You may also notice Jeff Atwood of StackOverflow fame is very modest abut his capabilities, despite affecting the technical world far more than 90% of the self-impressed people you may encounter online.

However, I'd also wager that "Windows guys" don't take themselves nearly as serious as "Unix guys", at least in part because Unix guys tend to in fact be smarter, because you have to be. I mean that as a genuine compliment. But I will follow up with an "insult" - I've met a lot of too smart people (in both camps I suppose) who let their brilliance and devotion to technical correctness and purity blind out any consideration of both economics and plain common sense, which is fine if you're running your own startup I suppose, but when you're playing with other people's money it's a different story.

>"we are mediocre, and that's okay, let's laugh it off!"

Given Scott has been involved in such things as Tekpub (excellent tutorials site, now bought by Pluralsight) and lots of developer outreach, I don't think this is the right thing to read into his writing.

>Perhaps he is just trying to be relatable to a community not known for exploration

What?

>lately I have been trying to read text more carefully, looking for worldviews, which has added a new layer of depth to even development blogs.

I suspect you (and I) introduce our own biases when trying to gain extra context - remember text loses a lot of meaning we'd otherwise get through vocal tones and body language. Maybe try the Hanselminutes podcast?

Regex can be painful in cases which go beyond the low-lying, easy ones. Also, people have different innate skills. I am one who does not do so well remembering esoteric character combinations. I use regex frequently enough to understand how it works, and what I need, but without fail, I lack the "muscle memory" to just know what to type when doing much more complex than a simple match. This usually leads me to Google, or to a tool like this.

I have similar trouble with odd terminal commands and flags. I am not afraid of them, but it simply not part of my mental make-up to remember them all. The ones I use frequently - no problem. Those I use only occasionally - Google. :-)

Let's face it - regex IS HARD if you are not a regex "power user" or if you are the sort, like myself, whose mental map is not optimized for such things.

Yeah, I end up using more a tool called vim macros found in vsvim. They are very powerful. There are only really two commands to remember: record and play. I highly recommend them to anyone who doesn't use regex enough to remember them.

If you're missing something, perhaps it is the use of literary license. The article is written for an audience not as a therapeutic journal. Sure regular expressions can be learned as quickly as one can type

      del *.*

but a few hours of study isn't going to make much of their syntax stick two weeks later, and two weeks between uses is a lot more frequent than most computer users use them. Everyone ain't a programmer.

> Sure regular expressions can be learned as quickly as one can type

    del *.*

That is not a regex, it's a glob/wildcard pattern.

Well it's also a regexp: It's "del" followed by zero or more spaces followed by zero or more of any char. :)

Although I feel competent with moderately complex regexps, I'm not sure I'd want to use them instead of globs while slinging my valuable files at the command line.

Which I think goes back to the ancestor point -- is it crazy to use a GUI to make regexps for you? Although I too can get snooty about that, I think it's smart for someone who doesn't use regexps frequently in their work -- but on the rare occasions they need to, they need to get it right.

It's literary license. There's no reason that 'splat' cannot represent zero or more printable characters or 'dot' be a reference to the literal character within a syntax for expressing regular expressions. There is no single correct isomorphism.

Though the point about Regex's being distinct from wildcards just reinforces the idea that regex's are not an obvious concept.

> Everyone ain't a programmer.

Point taken. I've always associated his blog as a resource for programmers, but a tool like this is perfect for non-programmer power users.

After using ViEmu with VS, I can't imagine editing blocks or doing code-gen-like tasks without vim's macros.

Indeed, vim macros are mind bogglingly powerful for such a small investment of time.

> Am I missing anything?

You can embed javascript in the NimbleText substitution pattern, which lets you go beyond just matching and replacement.