Comment by IshKebab

I mean it isn't clear whether a character is a control character (* + ? [ ] - etc) or a literal character because they're all mixed up. The rules about which is which are too complex, extensive and varying.

If you use syntax like "a"* "b" then it's really obvious - the stuff in quotes is literal text, everything else is control.

Lots of formats make the same mistake, e.g. YAML.