While this discussion boils down to the efficiency of the underlying regex engines for PHP and Rust, it does highlight (to me) why PHP is so popular: in the hands of average programmers, PHP is quick to write and fast (enough) to execute.
I personally believe it's ubiquity is well-deserved, and I actually like it as a language despite all its quirks (which exist in almost every language I've come across)!
I personally believe it's ubiquity is well-deserved, and I actually like it as a language despite all its quirks (which exist in almost every language I've come across)!