
Programming from A to Z - danso
http://shiffman.net/a2z/
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danso
h/t this r/programming thread:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/5hlx4e/this_gu...](https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/5hlx4e/this_guy_taught_me_better_than_my_professor/)

I completely agree with the idea of teaching regular expressions early on. I'm
teaching a course in the winter and plan to make regex my first topic. Can't
say it much better than Cory Doctorow did:

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/dec/04/ict-
teach...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/dec/04/ict-teach-kids-
regular-expressions)

> I think that technical people underestimate how useful regexps are for
> "normal" people, whether a receptionist labouriously copy-pasting all the
> surnames from a word-processor document into a spreadsheet, a school
> administrator trying to import an old set of school records into a new
> system, or a mechanic hunting through a parts list for specific numbers.

> The reason technical people forget this is that once you know regexps, they
> become second nature. Any search that involves more than a few criteria is
> almost certainly easier to put into a regexp, even if your recollection of
> the specifics is fuzzy enough that you need to quickly look up some syntax
> online.

> Knowing regexp can mean the difference between solving a problem in three
> steps and solving it in 3,000 steps. When you're a nerd, you forget that the
> problems you solve with a couple keystrokes can take other people days of
> tedious, error-prone work to slog through.

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jayajay
Wow, nice find. Let's all appreciate how fucking dope Daniel Shiffman's videos
are:

[https://www.youtube.com/user/shiffman/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/shiffman/videos)

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mabey
Looks like a quality channel for learning new programming skills. Can anyone
recommend any other youtube channels for this sort of stuff? I've heard
funfunfunction is also very good.

