Distributions, RE-verb and the like

[Paul McGuire]

Bearophile -

Well, I fear this may end up being another of those "easier to
reinvent" wheels.  All of your issues with RE's are the same ones I had
with lex/yacc (and re's too) when I wrote pyparsing.

Any chance for convergence here?

(BTW, there is nothing inherently wrong with "reinventing wheels".  The
metaphor is a bit flawed, since there are many different types of
wheels in the world, and not all interchangeable - consider a tractor
wheel vs. a bicycle wheel.  Some legitimate/valid/justified endeavors
are wrongly indicted for "reinventing the wheel" when in fact they are
focusing on a particular niche of wheeldom, deserving of its own
specialized invention.)

-- Paul