JavaVerbalExpressions VS coffeescript

There are libraries that allow you to define a regex using fluent builder APIs. Just to show you an example (not necessarily endorsing this specific library or Java as a language), this is how VerbalExpressions does it:

It's been done before though https://github.com/VerbalExpressions/JavaVerbalExpressions

That said, there are ways to embrace the JS ecosystem without actually using JavaScript. Many popular languages have transpilers that will convert code written in that particular language into something that will run natively in a web browser (in other words, JavaScript). Even TypeScript is a language that gets transpiled into JavaScript, so it's not that outrageous of a concept, it just gets more difficult to do the further you get away from languages that don't already look like JavaScript.

As a front-end web developer, do you still use CoffeeScript or jQuery? Unlikely, as TypeScript, ES/TC39 and Babel (and the retirement of Internet Explorer thanks to @codepo8 and his EDGE team) have helped to transform JavaScript into some kind of a modern programming language.

CoffeeScript

On the other hand, companies choose React because that's where all the developers are. If you want to build something that can be maintained years from now, you better not choose the next hype train that goes straight to nowhere (remember CoffeeScript ?). You want something battle tested that has stood the test of time, where you won't have trouble finding developers to scale once you need to. And nobody ever got fired for choosing React.