Larry Wall
Odd that we think definitions are definitive.Collection: Thinking
And don't tell me there isn't one bit of difference between null and space, because that's exactly how much difference there is.Collection: Differences
A journey of a thousand miles continues with the second step.Collection: Journey
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.Collection: Years
I've decided I don't want to be a manager. Every time you try to be responsive to your employees, they say you're being reactive and not proactive. And when you try to be proactive, they accuse you of being capricious and arbitrary. So I don't wanna be a manager.Collection: Trying
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.Collection: Feet
Are you perchance running on a 64-bit machine?Collection: Running
Let us be charitable, and call it a misleading feature.Collection: Charitable
Being famous has its benefits, but fame isn't one of them.Collection: Life
You can prove anything by mentioning another computer language.Collection: Language
It's there as a sop to former Ada programmers.Collection: Ada
It should be illegal to yell 'Y2K' in a crowded economy.Collection: Economy
Although the Perl Slogan is There's More Than One Way to Do It, I hesitate to make 10 ways to do something.Collection: Way
The whole intent of Perl 5's module system was to encourage the growth of Perl culture rather than the Perl core.Collection: Growth
Perl should remain fast and intuitive (to the extent that it is :-)Collection: Should
Many computer scientists have fallen into the trap of trying to define languages like George Orwell's Newspeak, in which it is impossible to think bad thoughts. What they end up doing is killing the creativity of programming.Collection: Creativity
I'm definitely a night owl. I get going about the time my wife crashes and goes to bed. And in some sense, I've had to learn to be more of a cat napper in recent years because Perl development, Perl design and development, has become a worldwide phenomenon - not just mailing lists, but RSC channels, Twitter even. This all happens 24 hours a day. And people come up with questions at any time of the day or night.Collection: Cat
That which hits the fan tends to get flung in all directions.Collection: Fans
If someone stinks, view it as a reason to help them, not a reason to avoid them.Collection: Views
Let's say the docs present a simplified view of reality.Collection: Reality
Basically there's just so much stuff flowing past on the internet now, you have to let most of it go. And I've grown accustomed to the process of not worrying too much about the stuff I'm not getting to, because the important stuff will come back around.Collection: Past
I'm a great believer in visual distinctions.Collection: Distinction
You need to go and find someone to teach you the rudiments of irrational discourse.Collection: Needs
Obviously I was either onto something, or on something.Collection: Funny
So many computer languages try to force you into one way of thinking and Perl is very much the opposite of that approach. It's kind of like a, well, sometimes Perl has been called the Swiss army chainsaw of the internet, but it's more like a Swiss army machine shop. It really gives you a lot of tools, some of which are dangerous, but it lets you get your job done very quickly.Collection: Jobs
Not that I have anything much against redundancy. But I said that already.Collection: Said
You can’t change the past. You can’t even change the future, in the sense that you can only change the present one moment at a time, stubbornly, until the future unwinds itself into the stories of our lives.Collection: Past
Psychotics are consistently inconsistent. The essence of sanity is to be inconsistently inconsistent.Collection: Essence
The problem with being consistent is that there are lots of ways to be consistent, and they're all inconsistent with each other.Collection: Way
There's some entertainment value in watching people juggle nitroglycerin.Collection: People
Part of language design is perturbing the proposed feature in various directions to see how it might generalize in the future.Collection: Design
Symmetry is overrated. Overrated is symmetry.Collection: Symmetry
It's easier to make up sayings people like to hear than sayings they like to heed.Collection: People
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi.Collection: Keys
The purpose of most computer languages is to lengthen your resume by a word and a comma.Collection: Purpose
We're really serious about reinventing everything that needs reinventing.Collection: Needs
A Perl program is correct if it gets the job done before your boss fires you.Collection: Jobs
Guilty as charged. Perl is happily ugly, and happily derivative.Collection: Ugly
Perl programming is an *empirical* science!Collection: Programming
You want it in one line? Does it have to fit in 80 columns?Collection: Doe
There's often more than one correct thing. There's often more than one right thing. There's often more than one obvious thing.Collection: Obvious Things
To Perl , or not to Perl, that is the kvetching.Collection: Perl
Almost nothing in Perl serves a single purpose.Collection: Purpose
The camel has evolved to be relatively self-sufficient. On the other hand, the camel has not evolved to smell good. Neither has Perl.Collection: Self
At many levels, Perl is a 'diagonal' language.Collection: Levels
Perhaps I'm missing the gene for making enemies.Collection: Missing
I think I'm likely to be certified before Perl is.Collection: Thinking
[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.Collection: Moving
If you consistently take an antagonistic approach, however, people are going to start thinking you're from New York.Collection: New York