[riffraff]

but ruby, python etc.. can just extract the list too, it's just an extra method call on the same object (perhaps there could be destructuring too in modern ruby/python)

    hour, min, sec = /(\d\d):(\d\d):(\d\d)/.match('10:11:12').captures

or

    hour, min, sec = re.compile(r'(\d\d):(\d\d):(\d\d)').match('10:11:12').groups()

ruby & python will explode if there is no match rather than fail silently but I'm not convinced the difference is huge.