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Regex purist corrects LGBTQ+ to LGBTQ.* for true wildcard inclusivity

Description

The image shows a soft rainbow-gradient background with pastel bands of green, yellow, blue, pink, and purple fading into one another. Centered in bold black text is the full caption: “It should be LGBTQ.* not LGBTQ+ because the latter only matches LGBTQ, LGBTQQ, LGBTQQQ, etc.” The joke uses regular-expression syntax - “.*” as a greedy wildcard versus “+” as a one-or-more quantifier - to poke fun at overly literal developer minds applying pattern-matching rules to social terminology. It relies on knowledge of regex quantifiers and character classes, highlighting how developers instinctively think about edge-cases and precise string matching even in non-technical contexts. The humor resonates with engineers who have debated regex semantics or been pedantic about pattern correctness

Comments

38
Anonymous ★ Top Pick Updated the conduct policy to /LGBTQ.*/; legal bounced it back - apparently “greedy inclusivity” introduces unbounded scope in both regex and compliance budgets
  1. Anonymous ★ Top Pick

    Updated the conduct policy to /LGBTQ.*/; legal bounced it back - apparently “greedy inclusivity” introduces unbounded scope in both regex and compliance budgets

  2. Anonymous

    After 20 years of debugging regex patterns in production, you realize the real challenge isn't matching strings - it's explaining to stakeholders why your inclusive wildcard pattern just matched 'LGBTQRSTUVWXYZ' and brought down the authentication service

  3. Anonymous

    This is the kind of pedantic precision that makes senior engineers simultaneously groan and nod in approval - because we all know that one architect who would absolutely file a PR to change the acronym based on regex semantics, complete with a 47-slide deck explaining why '.*' provides better forward compatibility for future identity expansions than '+' ever could

  4. Anonymous

    Regex truth: + fails the LGBT base case, but * captures the full identity spectrum

  5. Anonymous

    Escape the '+': inclusivity shouldn’t be greedy - otherwise your regex multiplies Qs like scope creep multiplies features

  6. Anonymous

    Marketing wrote LGBTQ+; regex read Q{1,∞}. The validator rejected LGBTQIA - postmortem: inclusivity isn’t a quantifier; ship ^LGBTQ.*$

  7. @Truth_0000 5y

    Regex

  8. Aleksander 5y

    LGBTQ$ Let's stop here.

    1. @Agent1378 5y

      LB is more than enough

      1. @t3alw1re 5y

        meh. 'G' is best.

        1. @Agent1378 5y

          S is the best

          1. @TERASKULL 5y

            S for single😎

            1. @t3alw1re 5y

              oh, my! @AgentLeon4000 really loves himself

              1. @Agent1378 5y

                S for the straight. Or if you prefer there also is A for AMDsexual

                1. @RiedleroD 5y

                  I identify as Archsexual

                2. @prirai 5y

                  Did we forget Nvidiasexual here?

                  1. @feskow 5y

                    novideo

                  2. @t3alw1re 5y

                    I'm ARMsexual, does it count?

                    1. @prirai 5y

                      Yeah, and Ubuntusexual can't be denied.

                  3. @nyxi69 5y

                    intelracial😘

  9. @Tenoooo 5y

    😂🌈🌈

  10. @Dobreposhka 5y

    You should be 100% of gay straightness. Men should love men and women should love men, no gays (and ofc no other sick people), only men lovers

    1. @t3alw1re 5y

      I second to this

  11. @beenotung 5y

    LGTM

  12. @nuntikov 5y

    Oh my god, again someone is trying to parse xml via regex, The best way to find lgbtq elements is to look for attribute suicide-rate being higher than 40%

    1. @RiedleroD 5y

      > higher than 40% jesus christ

    2. @nuntikov 5y

      it's an attempted-suicide-rate, my bad

  13. @Daler_XYZ 5y

    Fuck regex Sorry for fuck

    1. @RiedleroD 5y

      You don't have to be sorry for fuck, I fuck all the time.

    2. @gDanix 5y

      Regex is not the problem!! The problem is the people that parse XML with regex: They don't do it, but they don't know it yet

  14. @feskow 5y

    LGBT[A-Z]*

  15. @fie_n 5y

    fuck it! Rights only!

  16. @L2CacheGay 5y

    LGBT++, formerly known as LGBT With Classes

    1. @feskow 5y

      lmfao

    2. @Nufunello 5y

      I'm dying 😂

    3. @callofvoid0 5y

      🤣🤣🤣

  17. @UshioCheng 5y

    I prefer LGBT.* for more inclusiveness

    1. @sylfn 5y

      * is the best for inclusiveness

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