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Is it worth mastering? No. Worth understanding? Yes.

Regex is used in so many applications and commands, it would be silly not to learn it.

You don't need to be a wizard, but do understand the basics and it will get you far.

Somewhere in between "the basics" and "wizard" is probably best. Regexp is powerful, extremely valuable in the right places, and knowing more than the basics will be useful. On the other hand wizard-level expertise is not necessary to net 99% of the value of regexp.

That depends. The skills I developed with sed and awk have paid dividends. But when I hear someone speak of becoming a regex master, as if a regex was an entire tool unto itself and not just a way of representing a pattern, that makes me think of Perl regexes in all their absurdity.

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