> Then you seem to have misunderstood the point of my initial comment entirely
Yeah, I agree, sorry about that.
> I find it hard to interpret that as anything other than a suggestion to use a single, giant regexp.
Now that I look at this you're probably right. I assumed any meaningful compilation is actually impossible with a single regexp and so tried to interpret original comment in a way which made at least some sense for me.
> But personally dragging out regexps is the last thing I'd do for illustrating the conceptual simplicity of compilation...
Well, there are some advantages to using regexps as an example: they are widely known and they also are able to describe regular languages. But I have no experience at all talking to people about compilation, so I'll assume that you're right and that using regexps makes it actually harder to explain things :)
Yeah, I agree, sorry about that.
> I find it hard to interpret that as anything other than a suggestion to use a single, giant regexp.
Now that I look at this you're probably right. I assumed any meaningful compilation is actually impossible with a single regexp and so tried to interpret original comment in a way which made at least some sense for me.
> But personally dragging out regexps is the last thing I'd do for illustrating the conceptual simplicity of compilation...
Well, there are some advantages to using regexps as an example: they are widely known and they also are able to describe regular languages. But I have no experience at all talking to people about compilation, so I'll assume that you're right and that using regexps makes it actually harder to explain things :)