I'm just stating a fact that is true about Spiers. It's up to the people who read the story to decide if it's relevant or not, why should you be the judge of that?
We all keep saying "she" to refer to Kathryn Spiers. Spiers is a trans person. I think it's relevant to mention this as a fact, as I find it misleading (my personal belief) to keep referring to Spiers as "she" in HN comments. I think some commenters wouldn't have done so if they were aware that Spiers is a trans person. Not a big deal, of course, but I know this type of factual information gets censored out quite a lot, so I just wanted to shine some light on it.
Trying to simplify something that doesn't simplify inherently isn't always a good idea. Regex is pretty close to the least level of abstraction that is necessary to get the job done. It could probably be improved on, but probably not by much.
Some commenters below mentioned this Java syntax is a good idea and using endless number of regex cheatsheets as a testament to why regex is not simple enough and should be replaced. It's almost silly that this is even an argument on HN. Take for example quantum physics, there are lots of videos and guides that try to explain how it works, in fact some of the smartest people tried to explain it, even Richard Feynman. But he famously said if you think you understand quantum mechanics you don't understand quantum mechanics.
Some things cannot be reduced any further, this does not mean those things are always simple in nature or somehow were designed in a convoluted way on purpose.
At least when it comes to regex it's important to keep in mind what Einstein said, "everything should be as simple as possible but no simpler."
It's ironic that people apply reductionism to simplify regex, a thing that itself one could argue is a prime example of reductionistic design, yet they complain it's too abstract while applying reductionism.
Here are some facts before you make any conclusions based on a cursory reading of a news article:
- ABC News Australia is funded by the Australian government
- There are Facebook groups named "Hate China" in support of Honk Kong, these groups are free to operate, why are they not removed under hate speech laws? [0] [1]
- Separatists (Anti-Communists if you read NYT) use social media platforms to create violent mobs, beating anyone in support of Hong Kong unity [2] [3]
- Facebook bans groups and individuals in the US almost immediately if they lean far-right or otherwise disagree with establish norms set by organizations like SPLC (not laws)
- Facebook and Google see themselves as stop gap to prevent bad ideas from forming in the first place or "to prevent the next Trump situation." [4]
- Facebook spies on millions of Americans and sells that information, what would it do to the citizens of a foreign nation?
You know throwaway accounts can get banned and their comments "dead" too, right?
Try the founder of Vice, let's say you want to listen to his Podcast by just searching for his name, good luck doing that on Google, on Yandex it's the 5th result down.
Have you recently used Google to search for something slightly out of accepted-by-mainstream compared to search engines like Yandex? I'm not saying Russian propaganda is not real, but it's a helpful guide to compare and contrast the results specially relevant results that is being omitted by Google[0]. Of course this is mainly because we have hate speech societal norms, hate speech laws and such, but how do we know the countries on this map with low "Freedom Score" don't have their own reasons for removing content? Are we to judge their actions but our standards? If so why don't we just declare the world must obey our rule of law or else! Since there cannot in principle be any justifiable deviation from it. Unless we want to only give the _perception_ of tolerance for others' points of view, but not a real one.
[0] I'm not going to provide an example, shouldn't be too hard to come up with a slightly controversial example yourself.