BrowserUk: I don't know about Eily, but I type my regexes at 30-40wpm, I think that's close enough. Not that I'm entirely sure what your point is.

hdb: I've seen more than one less-than-entirely-joking proposal to localise perl-the-language. Without breaking existing code :)

rjt: Actual change, yes, has to be really good to justify breakages. But it doesn't have to be that good to simply provoke a discussion. Who knows, it might lead to a change that is good enough while not actually causing breakages. But to do that, people must listen to the pain points that any proposal is intended to address, not just the solution being proposed.

And, really, that's the point behind my response. I don't think Eily's suggestion will, or even should be, taken at face value. But the desire for laziness is valid. And comments pointing out how this is actually the lazy way for others are good counterpoints. But to focus on the proposal while ignoring the pain seems to me to be natural yet backwards. Looking to improve the language, even if that's solely out of newbishness (and I'm not sure that's the case here or not), is always deserving of a ++. Well, unless, I suppose, they aren't open to learning why their proposal may actually be counterproductive, if, indeed, that turns out to be the case (such as with this one, I think). Though I, too, use (?:...) a lot, I still think () as capturing is probably better than the reverse.