Larry Wall: Trending quotes

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Larry Wall: 588 quotes2 likes

“If there's a particular problem that Perl is trying to solve, it's the basic fact that all programming languages suck. Sort of the concept of original sin, applied to programming languages.”

Public Talks, The State of the Onion 10

“Life gets boring, someone invents another necessity, and once again we turn the crank on the screwjack of progress hoping that nobody gets screwed.”

[199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997

“… Then you start building things like the Berlin wall to keep people inside your community. In anthropological terms, that's tribalism. A tribal Perl programmer might say, "If you leave the Perl tribe to go and join the Python tribe, we will hunt you down, cook you, and eat you." Or if you join the Ruby tribe, you will explode. By and large, I am not in favor of tribalism. Except for my tribe, of course.”

ibid.
Other

“It's there as a sop to former Ada programmers.”

Regarding 10_000_000 [11556@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV, 1991]
Usenet postings, 1991

“On the plus side, it's a lot easier in general to find /usr/include than cpp.”

[199809041612.JAA05556@wall.org, 1998]
Usenet postings, 1998

“So please don't think I have a 'down' on the MVS people. I'm just pulling off their arms to beat other people over the head with.”

[199808050415.VAA24026@wall.org, 1998]
Usenet postings, 1998

“That should probably be written: no!@#$%^&*:@! semicolon”

[199710161841.LAA13208@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997

“Just don't create a file called -rf.”

[11393@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV, 1991]
Usenet postings, 1991

“[ End of diatribe. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming…]”

Source code, <code>Configure</code>

“And C was good at something I like to call manipulexity, that is the manipulation of complex things. While shell was good at something else which I call whipuptitude, the aptitude for whipping things up.”

Public Talks, "Present Continuous - Future Perfect"

“It is my job in life to travel all roads, so that some may take the road less travelled, and others the road more travelled, and all have a pleasant day.”

[199709241628.JAA08908@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997

“It's easy to solve the halting problem with a shotgun.”

[199801151836.KAA14656@wall.org, 1998]
Usenet postings, 1998

“I think you didn't get a reply because you used the terms 'correct' and 'proper', neither of which has much meaning in Perl culture.”

[199706251602.JAA01786@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997

“Besides, including < std_ice_cubes. h> is a fatal error on machines that don't have it yet. Bad language design, there…”

[1991Aug22.220929.6857@netlabs.com, 1991]
Usenet postings, 1991

“When's the last time you used duct tape on a duct?”

"Perl, the First Postmodern Computer Language", perl.com, 1999-03-09 http://www.perl.com/pub/a/1999/03/pm.html#jump5 <br class="br">Other

“It's not really a rule--it's more like a trend.”

[199710221721.KAA24321@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997

“True, it returns ' ' for false, but ' ' is an even more interesting number than 0.”

[199707300650.XAA05515@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997

“To ordinary folks, conversion is not always automatic. It's something that may or may not require explicit assistance. See Billy Graham.”

[199710141738.KAA22289@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997

“[Boxed] Multiple bouncing balls in a box are a metaphor for community. Notice how the escaping balls explode. This is what happens to people who move from Perl to Ruby.”

"The State of the Onion", perl.com, 2004-08-18 http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2004/08/18/onion.html?page=4 <br class="br">In reference to the boxed screensaver that comes with <code>xscreensaver</code>. <br class="br">Other

“Perl programming is an *empirical* science!”

[10226@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV, 1990]
Usenet postings, 1990