[Haskell-cafe] trivial function application question

[Brandon S. Allbery KF8NH]

On Jan 5, 2007, at 9:38 , Jules Bean wrote:

> Yitzchak Gale wrote:
>> You need to use a more sophisticated algorithm - building
>> up trees of potential matches, backtracking in some cases,
>> etc. Why re-invent the wheel? Just use the regex library,
>> where that is already done.
>
> It's merely a question of selecting the right wheel. Some problems  
> are so simple that regexes are overkill. Some problems are so  
> complex that regexes are insufficient. Some problems generate  
> extraordinarily ugly regexes, which are then hard-to-debug.

I will note that the most common use for regexes in Perl is for  
parsing (which is why perl6 has generalized regexes into a parsing  
mechanism).

-- 
brandon s. allbery    [linux,solaris,freebsd,perl]     allbery at kf8nh.com
system administrator [openafs,heimdal,too many hats] allbery at ece.cmu.edu
electrical and computer engineering, carnegie mellon university    KF8NH