Why do people defend the regex syntax? [closed]

Answer 1

From the perl module Regexp::English:

Regexp::English provides an alternate regular expression syntax, one that is slightly more verbose than the standard mechanisms. In addition, it adds a few convenient features, like incremental expression building and bound captures.

    use Regexp::English;

    my $re = Regexp::English
            -> start_of_line
            -> literal('Flippers')
            -> literal(':')
            -> optional
                    -> whitespace_char
            -> end
            -> remember
                    -> multiple
                            -> digit;

    while () {
            if (my $match = $re->match($_)) {
                    print "$match\n";
            }
    }