Complicated != complex ... it’s a straightforward expression. My experience is regex seems like line noise to people. If you show them the multi line commente

Complicated != complex ... it’s a straightforward expression. My experience is regex seems like line noise to people. If you show them the multi line commented form they get it, and can then appreciate the one liners. I’ve thought a neat IDE trick would be doing that expansion, into this visualization followed by multi line text you edit, and a column to paste sample text into and see matching / back-refs / captures happen. Stays one liner in code. Standalone tools do it, slicker if inline.