A few years ago I bought a book (I can't find right now) about the theory of computation, and it started with finite deterministic automata (FDA), moving on to non-deterministic finite automata (NDA) and how FDA and NDA are mathematically equivalent, then it showed how to turn NDA into regular expressions.
The explanation opened my mind to a new way to look at regex, so I found it a lot easier to understand and write them, and also understand their limitations.
The main issue I'm left with is that regex engines these days have added look-ahead and look-behind which means they are no longer mathematically equivalent to NDAs.
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A few years ago I bought a book (I can't find right now) about the theory of computation, and it started with finite deterministic automata (FDA), moving on to non-deterministic finite automata (NDA) and how FDA and NDA are mathematically equivalent, then it showed how to turn NDA into regular expressions.
The explanation opened my mind to a new way to look at regex, so I found it a lot easier to understand and write them, and also understand their limitations.
The main issue I'm left with is that regex engines these days have added look-ahead and look-behind which means they are no longer mathematically equivalent to NDAs.