Speaking of named captures.. Something I didn't mention in the blog post, but a rather handy feature:

ruby-1.9.2-p136 :011 > /My name is (?<first>\w+) (?<last>\w+)/ =~ "My name is Ilya Grigorik"

ruby-1.9.2-p136 :012 > first

"Ilya"

ruby-1.9.2-p136 :013 > last

"Grigorik"