[HN Gopher] Show HN: The Typing of the RegEX
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Show HN: The Typing of the RegEX
        
       I'm sorry/not sorry for creating this.
        
       Author : workeffortwaste
       Score  : 50 points
       Date   : 2022-10-26 13:03 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (thetypingoftheregex.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (thetypingoftheregex.com)
        
       | personalityson wrote:
       | They should state very clearly what RexEx version/engine
        
         | pcthrowaway wrote:
         | It's likely using your browser's javascript regex engine
        
       | igor47 wrote:
       | what are exclusion puzzles? the underline changes to be an
       | outline, but i'm really not sure what to do. some help on the
       | game would be helpful!
        
         | workeffortwaste wrote:
         | Every word but the marked words, you can see an example of one
         | being solved in this video.
         | 
         | https://youtu.be/da0GyuwaY_Y
        
       | Cieric wrote:
       | Note for anyone who might have missed it like I did. Dark Reader
       | makes the underlines not visible. Didn't know what I was doing at
       | all until I disabled it.
        
       | uses wrote:
       | How am I supposed to match two entirely different words? Atomic
       | groups with | don't seem to work. Not something I'd use regex for
       | anyway. What am I missing here?
        
         | workeffortwaste wrote:
         | /wordone|wordtwo/g
         | 
         | There's a video of it being played here:
         | https://youtu.be/da0GyuwaY_Y
        
       | johnmorrison wrote:
       | Loved this! Super fun, but the timer feels a bit fast sometimes
       | and as far as I can tell the game will randomly give you anywhere
       | from a very easy or quite difficult level at any point, so there
       | doesn't feel to be a natural progression in difficulty as you
       | start a new game and finish each level.
        
       | ykonstant wrote:
       | You are pure, unadulterated eeeeeevil. Also, I am surprised at
       | how many people are not getting the point of the game.
       | 
       | Edit: by the way, the colors in the page are wonderful. The font
       | is pretty nice, too.
        
         | LordDragonfang wrote:
         | Perhaps enlighten us rubes with the "point"?
        
       | cphoover wrote:
       | needs more clear instructions... Am I using capture groups? what
       | is the goal?
        
       | moritzwarhier wrote:
       | Great visuals and sounds. I didn't understand the reference
       | without the fellow HN commenter explaining it. Maybe you could
       | focus the input box on startup and after Game over.
        
       | orliesaurus wrote:
       | so frustrating you're not revealed the answer when you lose
        
       | Apreche wrote:
       | This would be a lot better if it didn't make me start and end
       | every entry with / Also, the timer is way too short for anything
       | more than a word or two. The third one is a whole bunch of words.
       | That's too much.
        
         | llagerlof wrote:
         | > Also, the timer is way too short for anything more than a
         | word or two. The third one is a whole bunch of words. That's
         | too much.
         | 
         | Unless game objective is also to train typing, you are right.
        
           | rashkov wrote:
           | I think that may be part of the inspiration, given the
           | reference to "the typing of the dead" typing game
        
       | llagerlof wrote:
       | I liked it. Thank you.
       | 
       | These are my 2 cents:
       | 
       | - The starting and ending / could be part of the mask, so the
       | user don't need to type it.
       | 
       | - Some rules are not immediately clear. Eg. "The WORLD IS GOOD",
       | should be /WORLD IS GOOD/ or /(WORLD|IS|GOOD)/ ? Or both?
       | 
       | - Add difficult levels. Maybe more time on easy mode.
       | 
       | - It's a nice learning environment. Let the user try to solve the
       | puzzle when the time ends, just don't let him pass to the next
       | level. Or maybe let him pass, but reset the score.
        
         | mcluck wrote:
         | I had fun with this but I _really_ wanted a learning mode. I
         | was more interested in solving the puzzle of the regex than
         | maxing out my score. Maybe make a version where you can get
         | maximum points for a period of time then the possible points
         | starts to go down. You can still continue after it hits 0, you
         | just won't get any points
        
         | xnx wrote:
         | I think you need the trailing slash so you can add the global
         | flag?
        
           | llagerlof wrote:
           | You are right! I thought the game doesn't support flags.
           | Maybe just the starting / could be part of the mask.
        
       | rvalue wrote:
       | have a untimed version too. also, typing // all the time is
       | annoying, make it by default
        
       | workeffortwaste wrote:
       | Video of it being played:
       | 
       | https://youtu.be/da0GyuwaY_Y
        
       | mistersys wrote:
       | Fun idea, but pretty unfun to play. Half the questions are just
       | five, six different words you need to `|` together, and not
       | enough time to even type out that many words.
       | 
       | Feels like the author thinks regex is a useful way to match a
       | bunch of unrelated words in a paragraph. Not really the point of
       | regex.
        
       | luuuzeta wrote:
       | I tried it on my phone and it looks like it could be fun. However
       | the timer is too fast.
        
       | SamLeBarbare wrote:
       | hurry up!
       | 
       | time based game over isn't a good idea.
       | 
       | good typer's are advantaged
       | 
       | insteed of that, distribute "try" token
        
       | 1-more wrote:
       | Is this a bug? Matching both instance of "us!" in "One of us! One
       | of us!" didn't work with either /us!/g or /\bus!/g. That said
       | this rocks and I love it tysm.
        
       | JulianChastain wrote:
       | Is there any way to see what the expected regex was after
       | failure? I feel like this could be a great review tool if that
       | was added
        
         | whoibrar wrote:
         | Yes. One or two potential answers could be really helpful
         | features.
         | 
         | It's too much to ask but I also wish to see recent submissions.
        
       | sundarurfriend wrote:
       | Could do with a bit more instruction and feedback to the user. A
       | lot of the times, the blue highlighting seems to indicate I've
       | matched all the necessary parts of the input, which _should_ mean
       | the puzzle is solved, but it 's Game Over instead.
       | 
       | My most recent examplew was "It's alive! It's alive!" as input
       | with all the non-space underlined, for which I wrote `/\S/g`. It
       | seemed to match all the required parts, but the timer just
       | counted down and ended with a Game Over. And there's no feedback
       | on what exactly was wrong. (I encountered similarly confusing
       | ones seven or eight times, so this isn't an isolated input for
       | which this happens.)
        
         | demindiro wrote:
         | > A lot of the times, the blue highlighting seems to indicate
         | I've matched all the necessary parts of the input, which should
         | mean the puzzle is solved, but it's Game Over instead.
         | 
         | You need to include punctuation for some regexes.
         | 
         | e.g.                  The brown fox.                  ^^^^
         | 
         | Would be matched with:                 /fox./
        
           | anamexis wrote:
           | You have to be careful about escaping, in case you do not
           | watch to match "foxy" as well.
        
         | asicsp wrote:
         | If you are interested in Python regex, here's my tkinter app
         | with 75 interactive exercises:
         | https://github.com/learnbyexample/py_regular_expressions/tre...
         | 
         | This assumes you already know Python regex. If you'd like learn
         | first, see my free ebook:
         | https://learnbyexample.github.io/py_regular_expressions/
        
       | satisfice wrote:
       | You should have written:
       | 
       | /I'm (sorry|not sorry) for creating this/
        
         | yshavit wrote:
         | /I'm (not )?sorry for creating this/
        
       | tambourine_man wrote:
       | Design-wise this is amazing. Typography, animations, just great
       | taste all in all.
        
       | Sateeshm wrote:
       | This is great. I would love it if it actually taught Regex for
       | users that want to learn!
        
       | wodenokoto wrote:
       | what are the / for?
       | 
       | I couldn't figure out how to get started until I read someone in
       | the comments suggest to make them optional.
        
         | WorldMaker wrote:
         | It's a traditional Regex syntax in several languages including
         | JS (relevant here), Perl, and going way back to ancient Unix
         | tools such as vi and ed.
         | 
         | The vi/ed form you often see in HN and other technical
         | discussion memes too, such as:
         | 
         | s/easy/hard
         | 
         | Which is a joke to substitute uses of the word "easy" with
         | "hard". The slashes mark a RegEx so you _can_ get really clever
         | in such jokes, though usually most such jokes are simple word
         | substitutions.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | maxfurman wrote:
       | This is fun! Except I was almost immediately stymied by a
       | question that asked me to match both "like" and "live". I put in
       | `/li[kv]e/`, which was not accepted, but passes in every regex
       | engine on regex101. I'm a bit confused. Is this a bug in the game
       | or did I miss something in the question?
        
         | viggity wrote:
         | add a "g" after the last slash to make it a global search. (I
         | didn't make the game, I'm figuring shit out too. All the same,
         | I'm a regex ninja and the time allotted is far too low.
        
         | Natsu wrote:
         | It doesn't seem to like regexes like /.*/ either, despite them
         | matching the whole thing.
        
           | [deleted]
        
       | siraben wrote:
       | Got 8250. At some point it just becomes a matter of "how many
       | words can you type separated by |", IMO. The design is very
       | aesthetically pleasing, too.
        
       | ksherlock wrote:
       | On older safaris, the background skewed svg doesn't display
       | correctly (which would be a safari problem but there are plenty
       | of ways to underline text without being too clever by half) so
       | it's not clear what should be matched, particularly when it
       | involves trailing punctuation.
        
       | juancn wrote:
       | What syntax does it use? For example `|` doesn't seem to do
       | anything.
        
         | juancn wrote:
         | Got it, it looks like sed-ish syntax. In the end it's a typing
         | speed test.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2022-10-26 23:01 UTC)