I'll try to avoid the obligatory “first post” scene and instead describe--what I hope will be--the overall theme for my blogging here; “the right tool for the right job”.

I've seen this happen in other places, but most often I see it in software development.  You read about “the next best thing” and suddenly get all religious about how sure you are that if you could only use “the next best thing” your life would be:

• 100 times more rewarding,
• 100 times easier, and
• your hardest decision would be which of the women thrown at your feet would you choose first.

Unfortunately that never happens (as I look back at the countless virgins in my wake).  What is more likely to happen is that you spend hours trying to force a square peg into a round hole.  If you're lucky, you're only frustrated, burnt out and minus a few hours of your life when it's all said and done.  If you're not lucky you're all those things, not done, and very close to throwing “the next best thing“ out the window because it didn't help at all.

Don't get me wrong, regular expressions (regex) are a great tool to add to your toolbox.  I just don't think it should be your only tool.  So as you read my posts let that be your grain of salt.  When I say (and I will) that coming up with a 7 line regex to validate dates is a bad idea, I'm not saying regex's are a bad idea, but that they're the wrong tool for that particular job.