Perl.com has posted a synopsis of Larry Wall’s fifth design document for Perl 6, Apocalypse 5, which discusses regular expressions. Regexps are near and dear to my heart (thus proving that I’m truly a total geek). I’m still wrapping my brain around the proposed changes, but they certainly look like an improvement from a usability standpoint. I really admire Wall’s ability to rethink Perl in a radical new way. There’s a lot of inertia that would preclude massive changes to the way regexps work, but he’s not afraid to buck that inertia and try to figure out ways to make them more approachable to those people who don’t yet have many years invested in the status quo. I’m impressed by that.