1 Aug
2020
1 Aug
'20
11:48 a.m.
during the mid 80s, i was preparing one of the first invited talks for USENIX on the
subject of regular expressions.
i had concocted a massive RE that matched all the known spellings of saddam hussein. (it
was complicated,
and there were many different romanizations active at the time.)
dennis ritchie wandered into the unix room and asked what it was and then immediately
applied it to our
somewhat newish AP news wire feed. it matched two new spellings!!