[thelist] [RFI] regex article input
Burhan Khalid
thelist at meidomus.com
Fri Feb 25 09:28:41 CST 2005
Joshua Olson wrote:
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Edwin Martin
>>Sent: Friday, February 25, 2005 5:14 AM
>>
>>Your example with DOS wildcards doesn't help because 95% (my
>>estimate)
>>of people younger than 35 years don't know what DOS is.
>
>
> I'd reckon that this % is off a bit. If you extend it to the whole world,
> then you are probably correct. If you only look at people younger than 35
> who are interested in programming, I'd say that number is probably much
> closer to zero that 100... DOS is more than just an old fogey tool. :-)
> Windows 95 was the first time the PC got remotely unmarried from the concept
> of interfacing with the DOS prompt, so most anybody older than about 26 and
> into computers has probably used the DOS prompt.
Anyone (no matter their age) that have used Linux or UNIX also knows
what is a wildcard.
Also, a lot of people don't know it, but they are using wildcards all
the time (even in Windows). A colleague of mine, who has no programming
or computer experience, knows that when he types *.* in any file dialog
box (such the one you get in Word's File --> Open) he will get a listing
of everything in the folder.
I once told him that what he is using is a wildcard -- his reply, "Well,
of course it is -- it makes sense for it to be" -- as if he invented the
concept :)
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