I was talking to Ole today about regular expressions, and one of the problems with regular expressions is that it, like SQL, compounds the actual problem into on string, thus making it very hard to read again. Luckily we now have ORM’s to take care of most of the SQL mess, but regular expressions hasn’t received the same kind of limelight. I immediately thought that one could use a similar technique to deal with the regular expression problem, just by expression it as a language (DSL) and running something like LINQ on it. And of course, several people has already been doing this. Nifty stuff!
Month: December 2008
YayArt covering my home
Little Brother
I finished reading the new book Little Brother by Cory Doctorow tonight. It’s a really exciting book, one that leaves you wanted to read just a few more chapters before you fall a sleep. The book is about a not-so-distant future in which San Francisco is attacked by terrorists. And how the whole system is turned upside down because of the event. Besides the main story which is really good, the book is sprinkled with reference to geeky stuff like Tor, Electronic Frontier Foundation and crypto. The book is also stuck full of good humor, like the following quote:
the only person who’d spoken to me was a Jehovah’s Witness and a Scientologist, both trying to convert me. It felt gross, like being hit on by a pervert.
I was a little sceptical about the book at first, since I’ve read some his earlier works and I wasn’t that big of a fan of Down and Out in a Magic Kingdom. So I downloaded the book for free (CC-licensed) and started reading it on my laptop. After the first chapters the book really caught me, and I ordered the book on amazon, thinking I would read the rest of it when it got here in physical form. Of course I couldn’t let go of the book and finished it of before the amazon order has arrived. That doesn’t mean I’ll cancel my order, the book is really good and Cory deserves the praises he has been getting for this book.