Are regular expressions worth the hassle?

Question

It strikes me that regular expressions are not understood well by the majority of developers. It also strikes me that for a lot of problems where regular expressions are use

Answer 1

I would never wish for fewer options in programming. Regular expressions can be very powerful, but do require skill. I like problems that can be solved in a few lines of code. It is really cool how many elements of validation can be accomplished. As long as the code is commented on what the expression checks for, I do not see a problem. I also have never seen a professional programmer not know what a regex was. It is another tool in the tool box.