The regexp syntax was devised for write-only programming at the terminal (at a time when a terminal was a physical object, not a window in your GUI). The regul

The regexp syntax was devised for write-only programming at the terminal (at a time when a terminal was a physical object, not a window in your GUI). The regular formalism is pretty neat though. There are alternative syntaxes (e.g. multiline regexps in Python) that are better suited for complex matchers.