[HN Gopher] RegEx Crossword (2013)
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       RegEx Crossword (2013)
        
       Author : nabla9
       Score  : 144 points
       Date   : 2023-11-02 10:30 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (jimbly.github.io)
 (TXT) w3m dump (jimbly.github.io)
        
       | M3L0NM4N wrote:
       | This looks like it belongs in Guantanamo Bay more than it does on
       | my screen.
        
         | Jeff_Brown wrote:
         | The variation in human preferences truly is wild.
        
       | asicsp wrote:
       | Previous discussion:
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26439208 _(390 points |
       | March 12, 2021 | 151 comments)_
       | 
       | See also: https://regexcrossword.com/ and
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20614847 (various online
       | regex tools).
       | 
       | I wrote a TUI for interactive Python exercises (`re` and third-
       | party `regex` modules): https://github.com/learnbyexample/TUI-
       | apps/tree/main/PyRegex...
        
       | Already__Taken wrote:
       | I love these I do all I come across. I find a lot of the
       | generated ones like to make tricks. I'm not having fun figuring
       | out a shit font of [O0lI]+ or rules you ignore most of. that's
       | just an entropy trick the generator uses. Hopefully this one's
       | good
        
         | kqr wrote:
         | I dislike that almost every clue starts with a variant of
         | (something)* - like, yeah, I can make a regex crossword more
         | difficult by starting every clue with a laundry list of things
         | that might not even be in the solution, but that's lazy
         | crossword crafting.
        
           | dajt wrote:
           | I agree. I've managed 14 letters but it's not enough fun -
           | every letter takes too much effort and there's no sense of
           | dominos falling yet. I assume there is some tipping point but
           | it feels too far off.
           | 
           | Maybe this is why I can't get one of those ludicrously paid
           | FAANG jobs :)
        
           | samtho wrote:
           | If you've completed any human language crosswords before,
           | this is a trick they use too in the form of ambiguous, common
           | answers (e.g. "super quick, abbr" can be ASAP or STAT - for
           | more annoyance, notice letter 3 is the same in both), usually
           | requiring you to get crosses to figure out exactly what fits.
        
       | xeyownt wrote:
       | Not sure why I lost my time on this but that was fun ;-)
        
       | npn wrote:
       | Huh, is there more than one? This looks different from my memory
        
         | pil0u wrote:
         | You can select among 4 different puzzles at the bottom of the
         | big hexagone. The default is the original one though.
        
       | kzrdude wrote:
       | Whew, that took a good hour to solve (maybe more)
        
       | scaradim wrote:
       | now that's cool...
        
       | 112233 wrote:
       | What a nice CAPTCHA!
        
         | jonhohle wrote:
         | To prove that you are a Turing machine.
        
           | schoen wrote:
           | Regular expressions (in the original computer science sense)
           | can be matched by finite-state automata!
        
             | lemoing wrote:
             | Yes, but filling a grid in a way that satisfies all of the
             | regular expressions is a much harder problem than matching
             | a single regex.
             | 
             | Semi-related: generating fill for regular crosswords is NP-
             | complete: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs
             | /pii/S03043...
        
       | jjice wrote:
       | I love these! There are more out there on the Internet and I've
       | unfortunately done all of them more than once, so I'm craving
       | more. I'll be diving deep into this.
       | 
       | Not sure if this helped me get better at regular expressions or
       | getting better at regular expressions helped me with these.
        
         | hombre_fatal wrote:
         | I love these too.
         | 
         | Every day I use the iOS NYTimes Games app to play the daily
         | round of Wordle, Spelling Bee, the mini-crossword, and
         | Connections.
         | 
         | We need a daily regex puzzle rotation. I have no idea how you
         | would generate these programmatically.
        
           | serialNumber wrote:
           | Have you given letterboxd a shot? Can be surprisingly hard
        
       | Feathercrown wrote:
       | That was very cool... hard to start and stayed difficult
       | throughout!
        
       | 3c6bYDXLMj wrote:
       | I was a student when this came out, so I obviously remember it
       | well. Kids with loads of free time, that were tuned to rote
       | memorise crap like regular expressions, ate this crap for
       | breakfast.
       | 
       | I didn't have the patience :)
        
       | benibela wrote:
       | That was uneventful
       | 
       | I thought something would happen if you solve it
        
       | nonseq wrote:
       | Took me a couple of hours, but it was fun!
        
       | sinuhe69 wrote:
       | I thought this crossword, where one can start learning regex
       | step-by-step.
       | 
       | A great app, though.
       | 
       | https://regexcrossword.com/
        
       | alonmln wrote:
       | I enjoyed this a lot! Took me around and hour an a half
        
       | MrPatan wrote:
       | Just solved it, finally, it only took me ten years of seeing it
       | on HN and attempting it.
        
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       (page generated 2023-11-03 23:02 UTC)