About

About Regex Hero

Regex Hero is an Online Silverlight .NET regular expression tester. I wrote Regex Hero in April, 2009. Since then it has become a tool that developers all over the world depend on.

Here's a brief list of common features:

• Find regular expression matches visually with instantaneous highlighting
• Replace text utilizing regular expressions
• Change your .NET RegexOptions however you'd like
• Step through Regex matches
• Auto-save your regular expression so it'll be there for your next visit
• Multiple undo & redo functionality
• Save & name your regular expression in the database for future use (must be logged in)
• Browse the public library of regular expressions
• Browse the built-in .NET regular expression reference
• Create a permalink to be used to share an expression with someone else on the internet
• Visualize named grouped matching
• Tab multiple lines

What's available to licensed (pro) users:

• A desktop version that can run offline
• Code hinting for regular expressions and replacement groups
• Benchmark your regular expression, and optimize for better performance
• Generate .NET code in C# or VB.NET to be used in your own .NET application

As a user of Regex Hero myself, I tend to find little things to improve every day. But I'd also like to hear your thoughts.

About Me

My name is Steve Wortham. I was born and raised in Dallas, Texas. And I've been coding since I was 12 years old. Back then my interests lay mostly in writing computer games and anything involving animation. I was always hungry to learn how to get the most performance out of my programs and make them look as spectactular as possible. My passion for computer graphics motivated me to become a better programmer until I eventually progressed into OpenGL programming. That's when I started www.gldomain.com and began giving away everything I wrote.

In 2001, when I turned 18 I went a different direction and landed my first job as the website guy for Combus Technology. I say "website guy" because my role at the company was a little uncertain at first. Essentially, I was their first web designer, until I learned ASP and SQL from a contractor as we worked on our first major website project and I became a developer. We built a complete e-commerce site with a shopping cart and a faceted search engine. In those first couple years I learned an enormous amount and loved it. Immediately following that project I went on to create a Google Analytics-like traffic tracking system and some helpdesk software, both for internal use. Then in 2003 we built a menu ordering system for CiCi's Pizza. It allowed store managers at the 400+ CiCi's locations to design the proof and order customized menus online. It was something they had been told was impossible, but we did it with a little Flash. That was fun.

Unfortunately, Combus hit a dry spell in 2004 and dissolved into nothingness. And on paper, my resume didn't look too impressive at 21 years old with only 3 years of professional experience. And too many of the projects I had worked on were for internal use and I couldn't properly show them off. But after a little persistence/begging I joined another consulting company called IWC Solutions where I worked on a plethora of sites in a very short amount of time, until I moved on to a few big projects that I still work on to this day. The first was a product called ContractEdge which is currently used by over 14,000 IT businesses. Then there were two sites that are connected: TechInsurance.com and BusinessInsuranceNow.com. Both sites have reached an enormous audience, and TechInsurance in particular writes insurance for over 13,000 IT businesses. The customer service, technical support, technical challenges, and everything else has been great for me in preparing me for what would come next.

Needless to say, I like what I do. I feel like I've lucked out by working for such great small companies. However, I realized pretty early on that I wanted to create my own software company some day. For years I felt like I lacked the experience to do this right. Finally, I founded BucketSoft, LLC in March, 2009 as a means to create and sell software that I see a need for on a daily basis. Working for myself gives me the flexibility to pursue the kinds of projects I'm interested in. Regex Hero is one of those products.