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
38Comment deleted
Updated the conduct policy to /LGBTQ.*/; legal bounced it back - apparently “greedy inclusivity” introduces unbounded scope in both regex and compliance budgets
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
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
Regex truth: + fails the LGBT base case, but * captures the full identity spectrum
Escape the '+': inclusivity shouldn’t be greedy - otherwise your regex multiplies Qs like scope creep multiplies features
Marketing wrote LGBTQ+; regex read Q{1,∞}. The validator rejected LGBTQIA - postmortem: inclusivity isn’t a quantifier; ship ^LGBTQ.*$
Regex Comment deleted
LGBTQ$ Let's stop here. Comment deleted
LB is more than enough Comment deleted
meh. 'G' is best. Comment deleted
S is the best Comment deleted
S for single😎 Comment deleted
oh, my! @AgentLeon4000 really loves himself Comment deleted
S for the straight. Or if you prefer there also is A for AMDsexual Comment deleted
I identify as Archsexual Comment deleted
Did we forget Nvidiasexual here? Comment deleted
novideo Comment deleted
I'm ARMsexual, does it count? Comment deleted
Yeah, and Ubuntusexual can't be denied. Comment deleted
intelracial😘 Comment deleted
😂🌈🌈 Comment deleted
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 Comment deleted
I second to this Comment deleted
LGTM Comment deleted
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% Comment deleted
> higher than 40% jesus christ Comment deleted
it's an attempted-suicide-rate, my bad Comment deleted
Fuck regex Sorry for fuck Comment deleted
You don't have to be sorry for fuck, I fuck all the time. Comment deleted
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 Comment deleted
LGBT[A-Z]* Comment deleted
fuck it! Rights only! Comment deleted
LGBT++, formerly known as LGBT With Classes Comment deleted
lmfao Comment deleted
I'm dying 😂 Comment deleted
🤣🤣🤣 Comment deleted
I prefer LGBT.* for more inclusiveness Comment deleted
* is the best for inclusiveness Comment deleted