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by notorandit 1339 days ago
Life is too short to spend time just to know what ripgrep is/does. I mean, yes, you all look so cool and I look so dumb. But, c'mon, is this software so complex that its description doesn't fit 42 words? Is like having a shop with no sign and no window. Everyone is saying it's great and worth shopping. But still no sign. Ridiculuos.
2 comments
burntsushi 1339 days ago
What are you talking about? If you bothered to search for it and go to the shop, you'd see there is not only a sign, but a huge fucking window with several signs helpfully telling you what the shop offers and even going so far as telling you when you might not want find the shop useful.

There's even a huge sign with only 12 words pithily explaining what the shop has inside.

https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep

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Lapsa 1339 days ago
you search stuff with it
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harry8 1339 days ago
So it's grep like i already have installed and know its quirks?
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Lapsa 1339 days ago
yeah but with less quirks and runs much faster. worth trying out
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harry8 1339 days ago
Uses regexes = has quirks.
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harry8 1337 days ago
Seems this comment was a bit subtle for some people.

Moving to a different set of quirks is not a step forward than continuing to use the ones you know. Regexes aren't de-facto standard; grep is different to egrep to perl to python to C++ to your text editor to whatever. It's a massive pain and annoying as fudge. You're a programmer you know this. A "superior" set of quirks may be better for new regex users but it is worse for everyone else who now has to know both grep (and all the other regex quirks) and ripgrep if they're going to use it. To get this done like I always have I now need to know something new. A new user doesn't care about the obsolete.

Faster? Well I have not yet experienced an issue with the speed of grep, that's my experience. I can imagine this could be compelling for uses I don't know about.

ripgrep may well be a better grep for some users. And that is Great, really! We should all try and make things better! Hurrah!

Refusing to describe how it is different and why you might like to install something non-standard (for which there could be compelling reasons) is just silly. Hyping anything at all in that context like that looks pretty bad.

The ratio of content-free hype (omg ripgrep is fantistic!) to an actual description on this thread or in the link or seemingly anywhere I clicked is pretty bad and constitutes a signal.

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burntsushi 1337 days ago
It sounds like you looked everywhere except for ripgrep's README. It explains upsides and downsides. Has benchmarks (with links to more, including cases where grep takes minutes and ripgrep takes seconds). It also has a link to a FAQ addressing whether ripgrep can replace grep and explains a bit more context.

More to the point, the comment you were responding to said "yeah but with less quirks." It didn't say "no" quirks. So your comment ended up being a silly non-sequitur.

Your follow-up comment looks ever worse to be honest, and sounds like an argument for never building anything different at all.

And half your comment is whinging about hype. Really? Yeah people get excited about shit that helps them get stuff done more pleasantly and faster than before. Who would have thunk it. Some great mystery.

Your comments get a big thumbs down from me (author of ripgrep).

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