There's a difference, right, in that named capture groups are purely cosmetic, whereas look-behind can dramatically slow down matching? (I dunno in any theoretical sense, but that's the way it goes in Perl.)
Named captures means you don't have to count parentheses to figure out which group you want. I don't know whether it qualifies as cosmetic, but it sure is nice.
> Named captures means you don't have to count parentheses to figure out which group you want. I don't know whether it qualifies as cosmetic, but it sure is nice.
Agreed! (As a regex-heavy Perl hacker, I loved the day that they entered the language.) I didn't mean to minimise them; rather quite the opposite, to point out that they gave a great return essentially for free (compared to regexes that still have capturing groups, but without names), as opposed to look-behind, which (I think) can slow down a match dramatically.
