1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. Larry Wall

Larry Wall Quotes
page 2

Larry Arnold Wall is an American computer programmer and author. He created the Perl programming language. Wikipedia  

✵ 27. September 1954
Larry Wall photo
Larry Wall: 294   quotes 2   likes

Larry Wall Quotes

“That gets us out of deciding how to spell Reg[ eE] xp?|RE... Of course, then we have to decide what ref $re returns…”

Larry Wall

[199710171838.LAA24968@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997

“Would you trust the linguistic intuitions of someone who has been studying Latin or Greek for three days?”

Larry Wall

[199809230518.WAA19312@wall.org, 1998]
Usenet postings, 1998

Study

“There are a lotta computer languages out there doing drugs.”

Larry Wall

Public Talks, The State of the Onion 10

“We question most of the mantras around here periodically, in case you hadn't noticed.”

Larry Wall

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

Question

“I think $[ is more like a coelacanth than a mastadon.”

Larry Wall

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

Thinking

“tt>echo 'ICK, NOTHING WORKED!!! You may have to diddle the includes.';;</tt”

Larry Wall

Source code, <code>Configure</code>

“I don't like your I-can-use-anything-as-an-adjective attitude.”

Larry Wall

[1994Nov12.013919.21133@netlabs.com, 1994]
Usenet postings, 1994

“But the possibility of abuse may be a good reason for leaving capabilities out of other computer languages, it's not a good reason for leaving capabilities out of Perl.”

Larry Wall

[199709251614.JAA15718@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997

“Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs.”

Larry Wall

[1992Jul2.222039.26476@netlabs.com, 1992]
Usenet postings, 1992

Hell , Madness

“Perl itself is usually pretty good about telling you what you shouldn't do.”

Larry Wall

[11091@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV, 1991]
Usenet postings, 1991

“Think of prototypes as a funny markup language--the interpretation is left up to the rendering engine.”

Larry Wall

[199710221710.KAA24242@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997

Thinking

“I don't know if it's what you want, but it's what you get.”

Larry Wall

[10502@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV, 1990]
Usenet postings, 1990

“I suppose you could switch grammars once you've seen 'use strict subs.”

Larry Wall

[199804140117.SAA02006@wall.org, 1998]
Usenet postings, 1998

“Not that I have anything much against redundancy. But I said that already.”

Larry Wall

[199702271735.JAA04048@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997

“Lisp has all the visual appeal of oatmeal with fingernail clippings mixed in.”

Larry Wall

[1994Jul21.173737.16853@netlabs.com, 1994]
Usenet postings, 1994

“There are many times when you want it to ignore the rest of the string just like atof() does. Oddly enough, Perl calls atof(). How convenient.”

Larry Wall

[1991Jun24.231628.14446@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov, 1991]
Usenet postings, 1991

Time

“Orthogonality for orthogonality's sake is not something I'm keen on.”

Larry Wall

[199809260112.SAA17178@wall.org, 1998]
Usenet postings, 1998

“The code also assumes that it's difficult to misspell 'a' or 'b.”

Larry Wall

[199710221731.KAA24396@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997

“Besides, it's good to force C programmers to use the toolbox occasionally.”

Larry Wall

[1991May31.181659.28817@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov, 1991]
Usenet postings, 1991

“It's appositival, if it's there. And it doesn't have to be there. And it's really obvious that it's there when it's there.”

Larry Wall

[199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997

“Double *sigh*. _04 is going onto thousands of CDs even as we speak, so to speak.”

Larry Wall

[199710221718.KAA24299@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997

“Does the same as the system call of that name. If you don't know what it does, don't worry about it.”

Larry Wall

In the perl man page regarding chroot(2).
Documentation

“tt>tmps_base = tmps_max; /* protect our mortal string */</tt”

Larry Wall

Source code, <code>stab.c</code>

“Easy things should be easy, and hard things should be possible.”

Larry Wall

Amazon.com Interview: Larry Wall http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=7137.
Other

“Larry's 2nd Law of Language Redesign: Larry gets the colon.”

Larry Wall

"Apocalypse 5: Regular Expressions", perl.com, 2001-06-04 http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2002/06/04/apo5.html?page=6
Other
Variant: &hellip; I also discovered Larry's First Law of Language Redesign: Everyone wants the colon.

Law

“If someone stinks, view it as a reason to help them, not a reason to avoid them.”

Larry Wall

[199702111730.JAA28598@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997

Help

“Historically Tcl has always stored all intermediate results as strings. (With 8.0 they're rethinking that. Of course, Perl rethought that from the start.)”

Larry Wall

Usenet postings, 1997

“There's often more than one correct thing.There's often more than one right thing.There's often more than one obvious thing.”

Larry Wall

[199806201726.KAA26569@wall.org, 1998]
Usenet postings, 1998

“The whole history of computers is rampant with cheerleading at best and bigotry at worst.”

Larry Wall

[199702111730.JAA28598@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997

History

“Though I'll admit readability suffers slightly…”

Larry Wall

[2969@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov, 1990]
Usenet postings, 1990

Suffering

“Course, that doesn't work when 'a' contains parentheses.”

Larry Wall

[199710211647.JAA17957@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997

“tt>/* we have tried to make this normal case as abnormal as possible */</tt”

Larry Wall

cmd.c.
Source code, Other files

“Unix is like a toll road on which you have to stop every 50 feet to pay another nickel. But hey! You only feel 5 cents poorer each time.”

Larry Wall

[1992Aug13.192357.15731@netlabs.com, 1992]
Usenet postings, 1992

Feeling , Time

“last|perl -pe '$_ x=/(..:.)…(.*)/&&"'$1'"ge$1&&"'$1'"lt$2'That's gonna be tough for Randal to beat…”

Larry Wall

[1991Apr29.072206.5621@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov, 1991]
Usenet postings, 1991

“If this were Ada, we'd simply doc it as 'erroneous.”

Larry Wall

[199809111734.KAA28296@wall.org, 1998]
Usenet postings, 1998

“tt>#define SIGILL 6 /* blech */</tt”

Larry Wall

Source code, <code>perl.c</code>

“All language designers are arrogant. Goes with the territory…”

Larry Wall

[1991Jul13.010945.19157@netlabs.com, 1991]
Usenet postings, 1991

“No, I'm not going to explain it. If you can't figure it out, you didn't want to know anyway…”

Larry Wall

[1991Aug7.180856.2854@netlabs.com, 1991]
Usenet postings, 1991

“…this does not mean that some of us should not want, in a rather dispassionate sort of way, to put a bullet through csh's head.”

Larry Wall

[1992Aug6.221512.5963@netlabs.com, 1992]
Usenet postings, 1992

Way

“Perl will always provide the null.”

Larry Wall

[199801151818.KAA14538@wall.org, 1998]
Usenet postings, 1998

“One thing I do understand is that people get scared when I start thinking out loud.”

Larry Wall

[20031212010945.GB29594@wall.org, 2003]
Usenet postings, 2003

People , Understanding , Thinking

“I won't mention any names, because I don't want to get sun4's into trouble…”

Larry Wall

[11333@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV, 1991]
Usenet postings, 1991

“It won't be covered in the book. The source code has to be useful for something, after all…”

Larry Wall

[10160@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV, 1990]
Usenet postings, 1990

Books

“It should be illegal to yell 'Y2K' in a crowded economy.”

Larry Wall

[199811242326.PAA28495@wall.org, 1998]
Usenet postings, 1998

“That's a valid argument. I just don't think it's valid enough.”

Larry Wall

[199804150050.RAA08093@wall.org, 1998]
Usenet postings, 1998

Thinking

“You can prove anything by mentioning another computer language.”

Larry Wall

[199706242038.NAA29853@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997

“tt>break; /* don't do magic till later */</tt”

Larry Wall

Source code, <code>stab.c</code>

“Just don't compare it with a real language, or you'll be unhappy…”

Larry Wall

[1992May12.190238.5667@netlabs.com, 1992]
Usenet postings, 1992

“It's documented in The Book, somewhere…”

Larry Wall

[10502@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV, 1990]
Usenet postings, 1990

Books

“Anybody want a binary telemetry frame editor written in Perl?”

Larry Wall

[199708012226.PAA22015@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997