Any thoughts on Ruby's new absent operator in its regular expressions

Verbosity doesn't equal clarity.

Eg. Constrast

1. 3.1415926535897932384626433832795
2. three point one four one five nine two six five three five eight nine seven nine three two three eight four six two six four three three eight three two seven nine five

Just as the symbols of Chinese or Japanese seem opaque and mysterious to most westeners, yet are as clear as day to those born in the East, so the regex nomenclature is only mysterious to those that are not familiar with it. Once you take the effort to become familiar with it, its terse economy is far more easily written and read than the nested function/method calls of this kind of alternative.