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Regex Blaster
- mdp 6mo agoTL;DR: I think you should still learn regex, even though AI has made it a "useless" skill https://mdp.github.io/2026/03/17/the-kids-are-alright-and-theyll-probably-still-learn-regex.html https://mdp.github.io/2026/03/17/the-kids-are-alright-and-th...
- croes 6mo agoA little bit early to tell. Let’s wait how affordable, available and good AI is when the companies turn to profit maximization and enshittification begins
- cachius 6mo agoYou can go local now with qwen 3.5 9B Q4 powering hermes agent at 35 to 50 tok/s with 99 percent tool call success rate on a used RTX 3060 for the price of two months of ChatGPT Pro and never bother. https://xcancel.com/sudoingX/status/2033020823846674546#m https://xcancel.com/sudoingX/status/2033020823846674546#m This is the worst local AI will ever be. It only gets better from here. https://xcancel.com/sudoingX/status/2033959603944493192#m https://xcancel.com/sudoingX/status/2033959603944493192#m
- croes 6mo agoNope, if nobody trains the models on new data you have at some point an outdated model. Imagine Qwen 3.5 created in the 1990s and then use it for today web or desktop development. And is the problem solved that training AI with AI code makes the AI worse? If not the "it only gets better" claim is questionable.
- autoexec 6mo ago> Nope, if nobody trains the models on new data you have at some point an outdated model. As people train the models on new data they'll be increasingly training on AI output including hallucinations and slop. More garbage in means even more garbage out and the cycle will continue as "updated" models decline in quality.
- m3galinux 6mo agoNot so useless. In my experience LLMs are about 50/50 on making a regex that actually works and covers the cases you asked it for. Even less when you get into cases needing advanced features like backreferences and lookahead.
- littlekey 6mo agoAnecdotal data point, writing and maintaining regex is still a core part of my job. Not useless at all for me :)
- HanClinto 6mo agoNice game! We made a similar game several years ago for the Pyweek game competition, but there wasn't the fun "letter invaders" style that this one has. https://pyweek.org/e/RegExExpress/ https://pyweek.org/e/RegExExpress/ I really like your implementation! Might be good to limit some of the special operators to give more focus -- otherwise the early levels are a bit too solvable with ".*"
- ks2048 6mo agoEvery vibe coded site is too dark and the text is too small.
- progbits 6mo agoThey all have this rounded box design as well. I wonder where that came from, I don't think it was a predominant style before.
- mrkramer 6mo agoI vibe code web apps with Google's Gemini and I think it actually mimics Google's UI and UX because I see similarities between my vibe coded web apps and Google's web apps.
- progbits 6mo agoBut that's a different style from the these colorful border rounded boxes that I think Claude in particular loves to produce.
- xg15 6mo agoRecently asked Codex (GPT-5.2) to write a small single-page HTML frontend to debug some REST endpoints. As it was just a one-off tool, I put in no instructions about looks or styling at all. Lo and behold, the tool it wrote came with exactly that round-box style. It seems to be the "default" style of some models for some reason. Which makes me wonder if people already experimented with different style suggestions to get different results: "Make it look like an 1998 GeoCities page" / 2005 Facebook / Newgrounds / DeviantArt / HN / one of those Windows XP simulators with built-in window manager / etc
- mdp 6mo agoThis is fair, although I ask for it to be dark themed to match what I think was the style of typing game I remember growing up with (it's been a while). Bumped up the font though.
- 6mo ago
- brew-hacker 6mo agoFun interactive game!
- SilentM68 6mo agoCool idea! I shall give it a try :)
- freedomben 6mo agoWow really cool! Genuinely fun, and educational at the same time. One usability request: after firing a regex, could the text box be cleared? It's not hard to hit Ctrl+A and start typing again, but it does add a bit of friction. (I can send a PR)
- freedomben 6mo agoSource code!: https://github.com/mdp/regex-blaster https://github.com/mdp/regex-blaster
- mrkramer 6mo agoThis looks like something I would vibe code with Google's Gemini. Interesting concept.
- neonsunset 6mo ago[dead]
- JanisErdmanis 6mo agoThis is really funny ;D Gives Tetris vibes and is executed beautifully.
- 1-more 6mo agoI don't understand the first "combat" level. There's no real defining pattern separating the good from bad hex strings, so it's just a typing speed contest to type all the enemy patterns, right? What am I missing?
- Andoryuuta 6mo agoAs far as I can tell, the first combat level enemies all start with "ALERT-" and have exactly 3 digits.
- 1-more 6mo agosorry, second combat level. It's all 6 digit hex color strings, some good some bad.
- Andoryuuta 6mo agoAh, I see. Yeah, that one definitely took me multiple attempts to see what it wanted. I believe that the "enemies": 1. Must start with "#" 2. Must be exactly 6 hex digits 3. Must be lowercase
- joshribakoff 6mo agoI cant even read this because most of the text is outside my phones viewport. Please test your stuff before posting it here.
- NooneAtAll3 6mo agoI wish it wasn't time-limited...
- lasgawe 6mo agoHaha, this is nice. I'm bad at regex most of the time. Playing this felt like when I first switched from Visual Studio to Vim. it’s a bit of a learning curve. It’s an interactive game btw
- sublinear 6mo agoThe page width is not responsive and unusable on mobile
- UltraSane 6mo agocool idea but it needs to get slower as the levels get harder
- pimlottc 6mo agoThe colors are difficult for colorblind people. Orange/green is difficult already, and then green turns into red depending on the state? Ugh. Looks fun but unplayable for me.
- baud9600 6mo agoDoes not render correctly on iOS (mobile Safari)? It’s a fixed Desktop view and you can’t pinch to zoom as needed. It takes effort to prevent mobile users like this! Do others get this experience?
- tyleo 6mo agoI have this exact problem. Looks vibe coded with little testing :/
- love2read 6mo agoReally fun. I just wish that stats were saved in localhost (like combat mode progress) and that esc instantly ended the round if you know you will lose.
- m0d0nne11 6mo agoCute. I had a crack at it but for me the fatal flaw is having to specifically delete the last regex before entering the next one, especially as the action gets tight. Each regex should go away once it's submitted, duh...
- ebergen 6mo agoI played through the training level and it took me a minute to realize it's sub string/grep match. So in the first training level the pattern . matches everything when it feels like it should be .* to match all the characters of the enemies. The UI looks great!
- trenchgun 6mo agoClaude default frontend skills suck :D