On learning specifics (Re: [prog] On Perl)

[Mary]

On Sat, Oct 12, 2002, Jenn Vesperman wrote:
> On Sat, 2002-10-12 at 13:44, kansas_kennedy at phreaker.net wrote:
> 
> > Just wanted to ask the more experieced if it is necessary to
> > memorize all the regex syntax. My understanding is if I can do it
> > from Learning Perl it will suffice and the Programming Perl's regex
> > will come in handy over the years of usage.
> 
> Having been programming for many years, I don't memorise the specifics
> of any language. I know how to -program-, I don't necessarily know how
> to program in Foo.
> 
> Knowing how to program in Foo is what books are for. :)

I wanted to be one of the people who jumps the other way a bit, because
people who memorise syntax specifics end up being portrayed as rank
newbies on a high horse in these kind of discussions.

I have a good memory. I also lose focus quite easily when I'm
programming and having to constantly refer to a text (or other
reference, as the friend who thought it was a good idea to answer my
Perl questions recently found out) drives me batty.  Hence, I tend to
fairly quickly commit the relevant parts of the language to memory,
probably more quickly than people who don't find having to turn to a
reference as annoying. The knowledge does suffer from attrition after a
while and then I return to the text.

In answer to the initial question, no, it is in no sense necessary to
memorise all the regex syntax. Learn as much of it as you need to be
able to produce regexs without referring to the text more than you are
comfortable with. If you're comfortable with using the text a lot,
that's fine. Don't make any special pains to commit it to memory.

It seems that many people, like me, use the technique of looking it up,
until one day or one hour or something, you find that it's already in
your memory and you don't look it up. If you don't like to use the text
constantly, your mind will give a higher priority to getting it into
memory. Your mind's priorities will take care of it - rote memorising
isn't nearly as effective as memorising by using anyway.

-Mary