When Envy Presumes Pride

I wonder how many accusations of "pride" are actually motivated by envy?

For example, if you see someone driving a beautiful car, or see a really well-kept home from the street, do you presume that the owner is proud of it and obsessed with its appearance? Why would you think that? Particularly toward people whom you don't know and have never met?

I do not know, but for myself, the possible explanations are:

• I would be tempted to feel that way if in the other person's shoes. So I project that same feeling on them.


• I know people who were clearly obsessed with their possessions, and had negative experiences because of it. So, I may initially ascribe this same flaw in others who happen to have a nice car or house.


• Pride and conceit are common vices, and so it's highly likely they are guilty of pride regardless. Particularly in the SF Bay Area, and Silicon Valley. The problem for me here is the "guilty until proven innocent" mentality.


• It feels better to accuse someone else of a vice (like pride) rather than recognize it as my own (envy).

Mastering Regular Expressions

I'm reading "Mastering Regular Expressions" by Jeffrey Friedl, and really enjoying it. Not only is it a topic that I find very interesting, but Jeffrey does a great job of leading you (and challenging you) on a path of discovering the power of regex. The narrative is sometimes a bit too self-conscious (the author never lets you forget that it's HIM doing the talking), but that can be forgiven because the book is well written and interesting.

I don't read a lot of technical, "geeky" books, so I don't have a broad base for comparison. But this is definitely the best I've read. So far, my only quibble is that he says that regex should be pronounced with a hard G, as in regular, rather than a soft G, as in regina. I haven't met a programmer yet who pronounces it this way, some of whom have been using regex for many years. We pronounce it rej'eks. Personally, I find reg'eks awkward to pronounce.