When not to use Regex in C# (or Java, C++, etc.)

Question

It is clear that there are lots of problems that look like a simple regex expression will solve, but which prove to be very hard to solve with regex.

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Answer 1

The main concern here is maintainability.

It is obvious to me, that any programmer worth his salt must know regular expressions. Not knowing them is like, say, not knowing what abstraction and encapsulation is, only, probably, worse. So this is out of the question.

On the other hand, one should consider, that maintiaining regex-driven code (written in any language) can be a nightmare even for someone who is really good at them. So, in my opinion, the correct approach here is to only use them when it is inevitable and when the code using regex' will be more readable than its non-regex variant. And, of course, as has been already indicated, do not use them for something, that they are not meant to do (like xml). And no email address validation either (one of my pet peeves :P)!

But seriously, doesn't it feel wrong when you use all those substrs for something, that can be solved with a handful of characters, looking like line noise? I know it did for me.