The latest articles on DEV Community by hollowsolve (@hollowsolve). https://dev.to/hollowsolve https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F3792607%2F89c8da87-2ab2-4b85-86da-1c468aff53f0.jpg https://dev.to/hollowsolve en hollowsolve Wed, 25 Feb 2026 20:14:22 +0000 https://dev.to/hollowsolve/why-i-replaced-regex-with-plain-english-2986 https://dev.to/hollowsolve/why-i-replaced-regex-with-plain-english-2986 <p>All developers know the relief of finally getting that regex to work. Then a few months later, nobody, including you, can read it.</p> <p>I got tired of it, so I started working on Match: a pattern matching language where you describe what you're looking for in plain English.</p> <p>Designing a language that reads like English seems straightforward, but keeping it organized and consistent was way more work than I anticipated. </p> <p>The more walls I encountered, the more opinionated trade-offs had to be made. Should matching be greedy with backtracking, or greedy with commitment? I chose PEG semantics. First match wins, no backtracking. That one decision eliminates an entire class of security vulnerabilities (ReDoS) and makes every grammar predictable.</p> <p>Should grammars be self-contained or composable? Both: you can write standalone grammars or import rules from modules with use "validators" (email, url).</p> <p>Every choice came down to the same question: what would a developer expect to read six months from now?</p> <p>If you're tired of writing regex that looks like a hashed paragraph, Match is free for open-source and education.</p> <p>Try it at <a href="https://matchlang.com" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://matchlang.com</a></p> codequality programming security showdev