Larry Wall: Quotes about thinking

Larry Wall is American computer programmer and author, creator of Perl. Explore interesting quotes on thinking.
Larry Wall: 588 quotes2 likes

“Real theology is always rather shocking to people who already think they know what they think. I'm still shocked myself.”

Larry Wall

[199708261932.MAA05218@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997

“My arthritic pinkies are already starting to ache just thinking about ||||=.”

Larry Wall

[199809251659.JAA06689@wall.org, 1998]
Usenet postings, 1998

“So I'm thinking about??, or!!, or //, or \\, or whatever. But I think I like?? the best so far. Or the least worst.”

Larry Wall

[199809150037.RAA17580@wall.org, 1998]
Usenet postings, 1998

“I think it's a new feature. Don't tell anyone it was an accident.”

Larry Wall

On s/foo/bar/eieio [10911@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV, 1991]
Usenet postings, 1991

“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.”

Larry Wall

[199808050415.VAA24026@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.”

Larry Wall

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

“(To someone at New York University) If you consistently take an antagonistic approach, however, people are going to start thinking you're from New York.”

Larry Wall

[10187@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV, 1990]
Usenet postings, 1990

“Your csh still thinks true is false. Write to your vendor today and tell them that next year Configure ought to 'rm /bin/csh' unless they fix their blasted shell.”

Larry Wall

Source code, <code>Configure</code>

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

Larry Wall

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

“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

“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

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

Larry Wall

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

“Odd that we think definitions are definitive.”

Larry Wall

[199702221943.LAA20388@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997

“I think I'm happier with that. $rubyometer += 0.3 or so.”

Larry Wall

[20031219184224.GA19865@wall.org, 2003]
Usenet postings, 2003

“I don't think it's worth washing hogs over.”

Larry Wall

[199710060253.TAA09723@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997

“But I know what's important to me, and what isn't. And I think I know what people can get used to, and what they can even learn to like. (It just takes some people longer than others. :-)”

Larry Wall

Usenet postings, 1998

“That being said, I think we should immediately deprecate any string concatenation that combines '19' with '99.”

Larry Wall

[199811242002.MAA26850@wall.org, 1998]
Usenet postings, 1998

“Of course, I reserve the right to make wholly stupid changes to Perl if I think they improve the language.”

Larry Wall

[199704251604.JAA27300@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997

“But you have to allow a little for the desire to evangelize when you think you have good news.”

Larry Wall

[1992Aug26.184221.29627@netlabs.com, 1992]
Usenet postings, 1992

“But you could do extreme programming. In fact, I had a college buddy I did pair programming with. We took a compiler writing class together and studied all that fancy stuff from the dragon book. Then of course the professor announced we would be implementing our own language, called PL/0. After thinking about it a while, we announced that we were going to do our project in BASIC. The professor looked at us like we were insane. Nobody else in the class was using BASIC. And you know what? Nobody else in the class finished their compiler either. We not only finished but added I/O extensions, and called it PL 0.5. That's rapid prototyping.”

Larry Wall

Public Talks, The State of the Onion 11