Just to throw another anecdote on top of yours, I've never worked in a shop where they weren't grumbled about from time to time - so I personally don't find the

Just to throw another anecdote on top of yours, I've never worked in a shop where they weren't grumbled about from time to time - so I personally don't find the parent's claim to be baseless at all. Many developers struggle with the "language" of regex - and no matter how many times I "learn it", it doesn't change the fact that I have to pull up references every time I'm building out an expression. Grandparents post re: Excel had me curious actually - because I (personally) find the use of Left, Mid, Right, etc generally far more logical and readable than trying to parse a regex string.