Perl Quotes - Page 2

• [Perl] gives you the STDERR filehandle so that your program can make snide comments off to the side while it transforms (or attempts to transform) your input into your output.

  Larry Wall

  Giving, Input, Sides

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• When they first built the University of California at Irvine they just put the buildings in. They did not put any sidewalks, they just planted grass. The next year, they came back and put the sidewalks where the trails were in the grass. Perl is just that kind of language. It is not designed from first principles. Perl is those sidewalks in the grass.

  Larry Wall

  Years, California, Principles

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• A Perl program is correct if it gets the job done before your boss fires you.

  Larry Wall

  Jobs, Fire, Boss

  Tom Christiansen, brian d foy, Larry Wall, Jon Orwant (2012). “Programming Perl: Unmatched Power for Text Processing and Scripting”, p.26, "O'Reilly Media, Inc."

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• It's certainly easy to calculate the average attendance for Perl conferences.

  Larry Wall

  Average, Attendance, Easy

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• As pointed out in a followup, Real Perl Programmers prefer things to be visually distinct.

  Larry Wall

  Real, Programmers

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• Perl is like vise grips. You can do anything with it but it is the wrong tool for every job.

  Bruce Eckel

  Jobs, Tools, Can Do

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• The world has become a larger place. The universe has been expanding, and Perl's been expanding along with the universe.

  Larry Wall

  World, Expanding, Has Beens

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• The whole intent of Perl 5's module system was to encourage the growth of Perl culture rather than the Perl core.

  Larry Wall

  Growth, Culture, Whole

  Usenet article <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org>, 1997.

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• Perl is another example of filling a tiny, short-term need, and then being a real problem in the longer term.

  Alan Kay

  Real, Example, Needs

  "Big talk with the creator of Smalltalk - and much more". Interview with Stuart Feldman, queue.acm.org. December 27, 2004.

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• It's not that Perl programmers are idiots, it's that the language rewards idiotic behavior in a way that no other language or tool has ever done.

  Erik Naggum

  Tools, Done, Rewards

  "Can lisp do what perl does easily?". Usenet discussion groups, groups.google.com. March 28, 2000.

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• [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.

  Larry Wall

  Moving, Escaping, People

  "The State of the Onion". www.perl.com. August 19, 2004.

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• Well, I think Perl should run faster than C.

  Larry Wall

  Running, Thinking, Should

  Usenet article, 1998.

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• Perl has a long tradition of working around compilers.

  Larry Wall

  Long, Tradition

  Usenet article <199708252256.PAA00105@wall.org>, 1997.

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• Perl programming is an *empirical* science!

  Larry Wall

  Programming

  Usenet article <10226@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>, groups.google.com. 1990.

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• A 'goto' in Perl falls into the category of hard things that should be possible, not easy things that should be easy.

  Larry Wall

  Fall, Easy, Should

  Usenet article, 1997.

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• At many levels, Perl is a 'diagonal' language.

  Larry Wall

  Levels, Language, Diagonal

  Usenet article, 1997.

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• Any false value is gonna be fairly boring in Perl, mathematicians notwithstanding.

  Larry Wall

  Boring, Mathematician, Values

  Usenet article <199707300650.XAA05515@wall.org>, 1997.

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• Perhaps you should compile your Perl with long doubles one of these megaseconds.

  Larry Wall

  Long, Should

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• Well, you can implement a Perl peek() with unpack('P',...). Once you have that, there's only security through obscurity.

  Larry Wall

  Obscurity, Wells, Security

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• When I announced the development of Perl 6, I said it was going to be a community design. I designed Perl, myself. It's limited by my own brain power. So I wanted Perl 6 to be a community design.

  Larry Wall

  Power, Design, Community

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• Perl was designed to work more like a natural language. It's a little more complicated but there are more shortcuts, and once you learned the language, it's more expressive.

  Larry Wall

  Keys, Littles, Shortcuts

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• And besides, if Perl really takes off in the Windows space, I think the rest of us would just as soon have a double-agent within ActiveState.

  Larry Wall

  Thinking, Space, Agents

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• I want people to use Perl. I want to be a positive ingredient of the world and make my American history. So, whatever it takes to give away my software and get it used, that's great.

  Larry Wall

  People, Giving, Use

  Interview with Maya Tamiya, lwn.net. January 17, 2001.

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• Perl doesn't have an infatuation with enforced privacy. It would prefer that you stayed out of its living room because you weren't invited, not because it has a shotgun

  Larry Wall

  Rooms, Privacy, Infatuation

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• The camel has evolved to be relatively self-sufficient. On the other hand, the camel has not evolved to smell good. Neither has Perl.

  Larry Wall

  Self, Hands, Smell

  Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, Jon Orwant (2004). “Programming Perl: 3rd Edition”, p.4, "O'Reilly Media, Inc."

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