[dntbnmpls]

The biggest problem I've noticed for regex is we use it every once in a while and once it works we move onto other things. And a few weeks/months later, we have forgotten much of it and have to relearn it all over again. Whereas, you generally use your programming language ( C++, C#, Java, etc ) everyday to keep your skills sharp, regex is generally "set it and forget it" situation for most people. And as you noted, different languages/shells/etc implement their own flavor of regex which can trip you up.

It's similar to SQL when you think about it. You set up a query to get the data you need and move on to other things. And every RDBMs implements their own flavor of SQL which can complicate things.

[hanniabu]

> And a few weeks/months later, we have forgotten much of it and have to relearn it all over again.

This has been exactly my situation. I love regex because it's so powerful but damn do I hate working with it due to the relearning process.

[m463]

I don't think regex is that specifically hard to learn, but you're fighting the escaping in your favorite language at the same time, so your learning is confounded.

[csunbird]

Please do not forget the fact that after a couple of months, you want to make a small change, but you forgot the edge cases when you first created the regex :D

[b3kart]

Unit tests will help with this.

[m463]

I would have to unit-test my command line commands :)

[b3kart]

If they are critical: why not? If they aren't: you can live with missing a corner case or two. :-)