Products · Pattern or everyday thing
Regex
Raised as a usability problem by 20 people on Hacker News over 18 years (2009–2026), in 18 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads in the last 5 years.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Writing simple regexes correctly takes repeated struggleUnreviewed
20092026- Regex syntax isn't intuitive, so the commenter must rely on external validators each time2025-05-17
- Writing even simple regexes correctly takes repeated struggle, even with online tools2025-04-21
- Regex finds edge cases wrongly and is hard to write correctly, adding mental overhead2019-04-14
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 21 complaints
- Dense punctuation syntax is inscrutable and hard to read or remember2026-10-18
- Regex searches return many irrelevant hits that must be skipped manually2025-07-28
- Regex syntax isn't intuitive, so the commenter must rely on external validators each time2025-05-17
- Writing even simple regexes correctly takes repeated struggle, even with online tools2025-04-21
- Couldn't find which regular expression syntax is supported2025-01-12
- The interface is frustrating to use on mobile2024-08-31
- Syntax is hard to remember unless used daily, so it must be relearned2024-01-22
- Can't find how to toggle case sensitivity2022-12-31
- After clicking Show Solution, user still must retype the answer to continue2021-11-17
- Documentation for regex recursion and match limit settings is hard to find2021-03-22
- User can't figure out the syntax and partial matching ignores their wildcard pattern2021-03-20
- Regex matching only says it failed, not where or why2021-03-05
- Regex finds edge cases wrongly and is hard to write correctly, adding mental overhead2019-04-14
- Regex are ugly and hard to understand at first2016-08-29
- Regex syntax differs across tools, so users forget and must trial and error2015-05-21
- Tiny fonts are hard to read2014-11-29
- Feedback is sluggish compared to other regex tools2013-07-21
- Clicking reference table links inserts items into expression instead of opening docs2013-07-21
- The interface is clunky to use2009-06-24
- Generated regexes are hard to read and the interface is horrible2009-06-24
- Interface is clumsy and confusing to use2009-06-23