path: root/local/share/fortune/perl

All language designers are arrogant.  Goes with the territory... :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <1991Jul13.010945.19157@netlabs.com
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Although the Perl Slogan is There's More Than One Way to Do It, I hesitate
to make 10 ways to do something.  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <9695@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
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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.  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <10209@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
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"And I don't like doing silly things (except on purpose)."
             -- Larry Wall in <1992Jul3.191825.14435@netlabs.com>
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:        And it goes against the grain of building small tools.
Innocent, Your Honor.  Perl users build small tools all day long.
             -- Larry Wall in <1992Aug26.184221.29627@netlabs.com>
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/* And you'll never guess what the dog had */
/*   in its mouth... */
             -- Larry Wall in stab.c from the perl source code
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Because . doesn't match \n.  [\0-\377] is the most efficient way to match
everything currently.  Maybe \e should match everything.  And \E would
of course match nothing.   :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <9847@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
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Be consistent.
             -- Larry Wall in the perl man page
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Besides, including <std_ice_cubes.h> is a fatal error on machines that
don't have it yet.  Bad language design, there...  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <1991Aug22.220929.6857@netlabs.com>
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Besides, it's good to force C programmers to use the toolbox occasionally.  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <1991May31.181659.28817@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov>
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Besides, REAL computers have a rename() system call.    :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <7937@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
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break;                          /* don't do magic till later */
             -- Larry Wall in stab.c from the perl source code
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But you have to allow a little for the desire to evangelize when you
think you have good news.
             -- Larry Wall in <1992Aug26.184221.29627@netlabs.com>
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Chip Salzenberg sent me a complete patch to add System V IPC (msg, sem and
shm calls), so I added them.  If that bothers you, you can always undefine
them in config.sh.  :-) -- Larry Wall in <9384@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
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/* dbmrefcnt--;  */     /* doesn't work, rats */
             -- Larry Wall in hash.c from the perl source code
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#define NULL 0           /* silly thing is, we don't even use this */
             -- Larry Wall in perl.c from the perl source code
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#define SIGILL 6         /* blech */
             -- Larry Wall in perl.c from the perl source code
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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)
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double value;                /* or your money back! */
short changed;               /* so triple your money back! */
             -- Larry Wall in cons.c from the perl source code
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Down that path lies madness.  On the other hand, the road to hell is
paved with melting snowballs.
             -- Larry Wall in <1992Jul2.222039.26476@netlabs.com>
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echo "Congratulations.  You aren't running Eunice."
             -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution
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echo "Hmmm...you don't have Berkeley networking in libc.a..."
echo "but the Wollongong group seems to have hacked it in."
             -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution
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echo "ICK, NOTHING WORKED!!!  You may have to diddle the includes.";;
             -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution
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echo $package has manual pages available in source form.
echo "However, you don't have nroff, so they're probably useless to you."
             -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution
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echo "Your stdio isn't very std."
             -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution
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#else /* !STDSTDIO */     /* The big, slow, and stupid way */
             -- Larry Wall in str.c from the perl source code
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[End of diatribe.  We now return you to your regularly scheduled
programming...]
             -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution
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Even if you aren't in doubt, consider the mental welfare of the person who
has to maintain the code after you, and who will probably put parens in
the wrong place.  -- Larry Wall in the perl man page
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"Help save the world!"              -- Larry Wall in README
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Hey, I had to let awk be better at *something*...  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <1991Nov7.200504.25280@netlabs.com>1
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I already have too much problem with people thinking the efficiency of
a perl construct is related to its length.  On the other hand, I'm
perfectly capable of changing my mind next week...  :-) --lwall
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I don't know if it's what you want, but it's what you get.  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <10502@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
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I dunno, I dream in Perl sometimes...
             -- Larry Wall in  <8538@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
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If I allowed "next $label" then I'd also have to allow "goto $label",
and I don't think you really want that...  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <1991Mar11.230002.27271@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov>
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If I don't document something, it's usually either for a good reason,
or a bad reason.  In this case it's a good reason.  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <1992Jan17.005405.16806@netlabs.com>
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"I find this a nice feature but it is not according to the documentation.
Or is it a BUG?"
"Let's call it an accidental feature. :-)"
             -- Larry Wall in <6909@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
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if (instr(buf,sys_errlist[errno]))  /* you don't see this */
             -- Larry Wall in eval.c from the perl source code
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if (rsfp = mypopen("/bin/mail root","w")) {     /* heh, heh */
             -- Larry Wall in perl.c from the perl source code
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If you consistently take an antagonistic approach, however, people are
going to start thinking you're from New York.   :-)
             -- Larry Wall to Dan Bernstein in <10187@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
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If you want to program in C, program in C.  It's a nice language.  I
use it occasionally...   :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <7577@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
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If you want to see useful Perl examples, we can certainly arrange to have
comp.lang.misc flooded with them, but I don't think that would help the
advance of civilization.  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <1992Mar5.180926.19041@netlabs.com>
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If you want your program to be readable, consider supplying the argument.
             -- Larry Wall in the perl man page
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I know it's weird, but it does make it easier to write poetry in perl.    :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <7865@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
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I'll say it again for the logic impaired.
             -- Larry Wall
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I might be able to shoehorn a reference count in on top of the numeric
value by disallowing multiple references on scalars with a numeric value,
but it wouldn't be as clean.  I do occasionally worry about that. --lwall
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I'm sure that that could be indented more readably, but I'm scared of
the awk parser.
             -- Larry Wall in <6849@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
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In general, if you think something isn't in Perl, try it out, because it
usually is.  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <1991Jul31.174523.9447@netlabs.com>
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In general, they do what you want, unless you want consistency.
             -- Larry Wall in the perl man page
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Interestingly enough, since subroutine declarations can come anywhere,
you wouldn't have to put BEGIN {} at the beginning, nor END {} at the
end.  Interesting, no?  I wonder if Henry would like it. :-) --lwall
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I think it's a new feature.  Don't tell anyone it was an accident.  :-)
         -- Larry Wall on s/foo/bar/eieio in <10911@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
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"It is easier to port a shell than a shell script."
             -- Larry Wall
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It is, of course, written in Perl.  Translation to C is left as an
exercise for the reader.  :-)  -- Larry Wall in <7448@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
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It's all magic.  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <7282@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
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It's documented in The Book, somewhere...
             -- Larry Wall in <10502@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
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> (It's sorta like sed, but not.  It's sorta like awk, but not.  etc.)
Guilty as charged.  Perl is happily ugly, and happily derivative.
             -- Larry Wall in <1992Aug26.184221.29627@netlabs.com>
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It's there as a sop to former Ada programmers.  :-)
     -- Larry Wall regarding 10_000_000 in <11556@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
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It won't be covered in the book.  The source code has to be useful for
something, after all...  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <10160@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
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:  I've heard that there is a shell (bourne or csh) to perl filter, does
:  anyone know of this or where I can get it?
Yeah, you filter it through Tom Christiansen.  :-)  -- Larry Wall
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:       I've tried (in vi) "g/[a-z]\n[a-z]/s//_/"...but that doesn't
: cut it.  Any ideas?  (I take it that it may be a two-pass sort of solution).
In the first pass, install perl. :-)
             -- Larry Wall <6849@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
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I won't mention any names, because I don't want to get sun4's into
trouble...  :-)     -- Larry Wall in <11333@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
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Just don't compare it with a real language, or you'll be unhappy...  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <1992May12.190238.5667@netlabs.com>
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Just don't create a file called -rf.  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <11393@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
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last|perl -pe '$_ x=/(..:..)...(.*)/&&"'$1'"ge$1&&"'$1'"lt$2'
That's gonna be tough for Randal to beat...  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in  <1991Apr29.072206.5621@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov>
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Let's say the docs present a simplified view of reality...    :-)
             -- Larry Wall in  <6940@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
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Let us be charitable, and call it a misleading feature  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <2609@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov>
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Lispers are among the best grads of the Sweep-It-Under-Someone-Else's-Carpet
School of Simulated Simplicity.  [Was that sufficiently incendiary?  :-)]
             -- Larry Wall in <1992Jan10.201804.11926@netlabs.com
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No, I'm not going to explain it.  If you can't figure it out, you didn't
want to know anyway...  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <1991Aug7.180856.2854@netlabs.com>
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/* now make a new head in the exact same spot */
             -- Larry Wall in cons.c from the perl source code
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OK, enough hype.
             -- Larry Wall in the perl man page
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OOPS!  You naughty creature!  You didn't run Configure with sh!
I will attempt to remedy the situation by running sh for you...
             -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution
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Perl is designed to give you several ways to do anything, so
consider picking the most readable one.
             -- Larry Wall in the perl man page
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Perl itself is usually pretty good about telling you what you shouldn't
do. :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <11091@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
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Perl programming is an *empirical* science!
             -- Larry Wall in <10226@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
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pos += screamnext[pos]  /* does this goof up anywhere? */
             -- Larry Wall in util.c from the perl source code
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Q. Why is this so clumsy?
A. The trick is to use Perl's strengths rather than its weaknesses.
             -- Larry Wall in <8225@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
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Randal said it would be tough to do in sed.  He didn't say he didn't
understand sed.  Randal understands sed quite well.  Which is why he
uses Perl.   :-)  -- Larry Wall in <7874@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
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Real programmers can write assembly code in any language.   :-)
             -- Larry Wall in  <8571@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
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Remember though that
THERE IS NO GENERAL RULE FOR CONVERTING A LIST INTO A SCALAR.
             -- Larry Wall in the perl man page
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s = (char*)(long)retval;                /* ouch */
             -- Larry Wall in doio.c from the perl source code
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signal(i, SIG_DFL); /* crunch, crunch, crunch */
             -- Larry Wall in doarg.c from the perl source code
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Sorry.  My testing organization is either too small, or too large, depending
on how you look at it.  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <1991Apr22.175438.8564@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov>
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stab_val(stab)->str_nok = 1;    /* what a wonderful hack! */
             -- Larry Wall in stab.c from the perl source code
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str->str_pok |= SP_FBM;                     /* deep magic */
s = (unsigned char*)(str->str_ptr);         /* deeper magic */
             -- Larry Wall in util.c from the perl source code
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Tactical?  TACTICAL!?!?  Hey, buddy, we went from kilotons to megatons
several minutes ago.  We don't need no stinkin' tactical nukes.
(By the way, do you have change for 10 million people?) --lwall
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That means I'll have to use $ans to suppress newlines now.
Life is ridiculous.
             -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution
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The autodecrement is not magical.
             -- Larry Wall in the perl man page
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The only disadvantage I see is that it would force everyone to get Perl.
Horrors.  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in  <8854@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
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*** The previous line contains the naughty word "$&".\n
if /(ibm|apple|awk)/;      # :-)
             -- Larry Wall in the perl man page
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There ain't nothin' in this world that's worth being a snot over.
             -- Larry Wall in <1992Aug19.041614.6963@netlabs.com>
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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 in <1991Jun24.231628.14446@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov>
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There are probably better ways to do that, but it would make the parser
more complex.  I do, occasionally, struggle feebly against complexity...  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <7886@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
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There are still some other things to do, so don't think if I didn't fix
your favorite bug that your bug report is in the bit bucket.  (It may be,
but don't think it.  :-)  Larry Wall in <7238@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
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There is, however, a strange, musty smell in the air that reminds me of
something...hmm...yes...I've got it...there's a VMS nearby, or I'm a Blit.
             -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution
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"The road to hell is paved with melting snowballs."
             -- Larry Wall in  <1992Jul2.222039.26476@netlabs.com>
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/* This bit of chicanery makes a unary function followed by
a parenthesis into a function with one argument, highest precedence. */
             -- Larry Wall in toke.c from the perl source code
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"...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 in <1992Aug6.221512.5963@netlabs.com>
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> This made me wonder, suddenly: can telnet be written in perl?
Of course it can be written in Perl.  Now if you'd said nroff,
that would be more challenging...   -- Larry Wall
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Though I'll admit readability suffers slightly...
             -- Larry Wall in <2969@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov>
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tmps_base = tmps_max;                /* protect our mortal string */
             -- Larry Wall in stab.c from the perl source code
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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 in <1992Aug13.192357.15731@netlabs.com>
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"We all agree on the necessity of compromise.  We just can't agree on
when it's necessary to compromise."
             -- Larry Wall in  <1991Nov13.194420.28091@netlabs.com>
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/* we have tried to make this normal case as abnormal as possible */
             -- Larry Wall in cmd.c from the perl source code
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What about WRITING it first and rationalizing it afterwords?  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <8162@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
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: 1.  What is the possibility of this being added in the future?
In the near future, the probability is close to zero.  In the distant
future, I'll be dead, and posterity can do whatever they like...  :-) --lwall
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"What is the sound of Perl?  Is it not the sound of a wall that
people have stopped banging their heads against?"
             -- Larry Wall in <1992Aug26.184221.29627@netlabs.com>
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When in doubt, parenthesize.  At the very least it will let some
poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi.
             -- Larry Wall in the perl man page
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"You can't have filenames longer than 14 chars.
You can't even think about them!"
             -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution
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You have to admit that it's difficult to misplace the Perl sources.  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <1992Aug26.184221.29627@netlabs.com>
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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 in Configure from the perl distribution
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You want it in one line?  Does it have to fit in 80 columns?   :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <7349@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
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Well, enough clowning around.  Perl is, in intent, a cleaned up and
summarized version of that wonderful semi-natural language known as
"Unix".
             -- Larry Wall in <1994Apr6.184419.3687@netlabs.com>
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Anyway, there's plenty of room for doubt.  It might seem easy enough,
but computer language design is just like a stroll in the park.

Jurassic Park, that is.
             -- Larry Wall in <1994Jun15.074039.2654@netlabs.com>
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I want to see people using Perl to glue things together creatively, not
just technically but also socially.
             -- Larry Wall in <199702111730.JAA28598@wall.org>
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The whole history of computers is rampant with cheerleading at best and
bigotry at worst.
             -- Larry Wall in <199702111730.JAA28598@wall.org>
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Unix weanies are as bad at this as anyone.
             -- Larry Wall in <199702111730.JAA28598@wall.org>
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If someone stinks, view it as a reason to help them, not a reason to
avoid them.
             -- Larry Wall in <199702111730.JAA28598@wall.org>
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As usual, I'm overstating the case to knock a few neurons loose, but the
truth is usually somewhere in the muddle, uh, middle.
             -- Larry Wall in <199702111639.IAA28425@wall.org>
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Odd that we think definitions are definitive.   :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <199702221943.LAA20388@wall.org>
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: But for some things, Perl just isn't the optimal choice.

(yet)   :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <199702221943.LAA20388@wall.org>
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I don't like this official/unofficial distinction.  It sound, er, officious.
             -- Larry Wall in <199702221943.LAA20388@wall.org>
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If you write something wrong enough, I'll be glad to make up a new
witticism just for you.
             -- Larry Wall in <199702221943.LAA20388@wall.org>
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Perl 5 introduced everything else, including the ability to introduce
everything else.
             -- Larry Wall in <199702252152.NAA28845@wall.org>
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So far we've managed to avoid turning Perl into APL.  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <199702251904.LAA28261@wall.org>
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Not that I have anything much against redundancy.  But I said that already.
             -- Larry Wall in <199702271735.JAA04048@wall.org>
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They can always run stderr through uniq.  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <199704012331.PAA16535@wall.org>
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I'd put my money where my mouth is, but my mouth keeps moving.
             -- Larry Wall in <199704051723.JAA28035@wall.org>
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Of course, I reserve the right to make wholly stupid changes to Perl
if I think they improve the language.  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <199704251604.JAA27300@wall.org>
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Call me bored, but don't call me boring.
             -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org>
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I think $[ is more like a coelacanth than a mastadon.
             -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org>
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: I used to think that this was just another demonstration of Larry's
: enormous skill at pulling off what other people would fail or balk at.

Well, everyone else knew it was impossible, so they didn't try.  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org>
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We question most of the mantras around here periodically, in case
you hadn't noticed.  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org>
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(Presuming for the sake of argument that it's even *possible* to design
better code in Perl than in C.  :-)
    -- Larry Wall on core code vs. module code design
%
: The hierarchy is excessive.

So is the anarchy.  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org>
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That could certainly be done, but I don't want to fall into the Forth
trap, where every running Forth implementation is really a different
language.
             -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org>
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Tcl long ago fell into the Forth trap, and is now trying desperately to
extricate itself (with some help from Sun's marketing department).
             -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org>
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The core is not frozen, but slushy.
             -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org>
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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 in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org>
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Randal can write one-liners again.  Everyone is happy, and peace spreads
over the whole Earth.
             -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org>
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Life gets boring, someone invents another necessity, and once again we
turn the crank on the screwjack of progress hoping that nobody gets
screwed.
             -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org>
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No prisoner's dilemma here.  Over the long term, symbiosis is more
useful than parasitism.  More fun, too.  Ask any mitochondria.
             -- Larry Wall in <199705102042.NAA00851@wall.org>
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Obviously I was either onto something, or on something.
             -- Larry Wall on the creation of Perl
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It's the Magic that counts.
             -- Larry Wall on Perl's apparent ugliness
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May you do Good Magic with Perl.
             -- Larry Wall's blessing
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P.S. Perl's master plan (or what passes for one) is to take over the
world like English did.  Er, *as* English did...
             -- Larry Wall in <199705201832.LAA28393@wall.org>
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You can prove anything by mentioning another computer language.  :-)

             -- Larry Wall in <199706242038.NAA29853@wall.org>
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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 in <199706251602.JAA01786@wall.org>
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I'm sure a mathematician would claim that 0 and 1 are both very
interesting numbers.  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <199707300650.XAA05515@wall.org>
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True, it returns "" for false, but "" is an even more interesting
number than 0.
             -- Larry Wall in <199707300650.XAA05515@wall.org>
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Any false value is gonna be fairly boring in Perl, mathematicians
notwithstanding.
             -- Larry Wall in <199707300650.XAA05515@wall.org>
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We didn't put in ^^ because then we'd have to keep telling people what
it means, and then we'd have to keep telling them why it doesn't short
circuit.  :-/
             -- Larry Wall in <199707300650.XAA05515@wall.org>
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Anybody want a binary telemetry frame editor written in Perl?
             -- Larry Wall in <199708012226.PAA22015@wall.org>
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Most places distinguish them merely by using the appropriate value.
Hooray for context...
             -- Larry Wall in <199708040319.UAA16213@wall.org>
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But then it's a bit odd to think that declaring something int could
actually slow down the program, if it ended up forcing more conversions
back to string.
             -- Larry Wall in <199708040319.UAA16213@wall.org>
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It's possible that I'm just an idiot, and don't recognize a sleepy
slavemaster when I see one.
             -- Larry Wall in <199708040319.UAA16213@wall.org>
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Perhaps I'm missing the gene for making enemies.  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <199708040319.UAA16213@wall.org>
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Perl has a long tradition of working around compilers.
             -- Larry Wall in <199708252256.PAA00105@wall.org>
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Personally, I like to defiantly split my infinitives.  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <199708271551.IAA10211@wall.org>
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Real theology is always rather shocking to people who already
think they know what they think.  I'm still shocked myself.  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <199708261932.MAA05218@wall.org>
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But maybe we don't really need that...
             -- Larry Wall in <199709011851.LAA07101@wall.org>
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The computer should be doing the hard work.  That's what it's paid to do,
after all.
             -- Larry Wall in <199709012312.QAA08121@wall.org>
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The following two statements are usually both true:

There's not enough documentation.

There's too much documentation.
             -- Larry Wall in <199709020026.RAA08431@wall.org>
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I don't think I'm gonna agree with that.  Way too much visual confusion...
             -- Larry Wall in <199709021627.JAA11966@wall.org>
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There's certainly precedent for that already too.  (Not claiming it's
*good* precedent, mind you. :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <199709021744.KAA12428@wall.org>
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Of course, this being Perl, we could always take both approaches.  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <199709021744.KAA12428@wall.org>
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For the run-time caching, I was going to suggest "cached" (doh!), but
perhaps "once" is more meaningful to ordinary people.
             -- Larry Wall in <199709021812.LAA12571@wall.org>
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The random quantum fluctuations of my brain are historical accidents that
happen to have decided that the concepts of dynamic scoping and lexical
scoping are orthogonal and should remain that way.
             -- Larry Wall in <199709021854.LAA12794@wall.org>
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At many levels, Perl is a "diagonal" language.
             -- Larry Wall in <199709021854.LAA12794@wall.org>
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I'm serious about thinking through all the possibilities before we
settle on anything.  All things have the advantages of their
disadvantages, and vice versa.
             -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org>
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Part of language design is purturbing the proposed feature in various
directions to see how it might generalize in the future.
             -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org>
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Sometimes we choose the generalization.  Sometimes we don't.
             -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org>
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I wouldn't ever write the full sentence myself, but then, I never use
goto either.
             -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org>
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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 in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org>
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Oh, get ahold of yourself.  Nobody's proposing that we parse English.
             -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org>
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As with all the other proposals, it's basically just a list of words.
You can deal with that... :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org>
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I hope I'm not getting so famous that I can't think out load [sic] anymore.
             -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org>
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It would be possible to optimize some forms of goto, but I haven't
bothered.
             -- Larry Wall in <199709041935.MAA27136@wall.org>
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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 in <199709041935.MAA27136@wall.org>
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How do Crays and Alphas handle the POSIX problem?
             -- Larry Wall in <199709050042.RAA29379@wall.org>
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One of the reasons Perl is faster than certain other unnamed interpreted
languages is that it binds variable names to a particular package (or
scope) at compile time rather than at run time.
             -- Larry Wall in <199709050035.RAA29328@wall.org>
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Well, that's more-or-less what I was saying, though obviously addition
is a little more cosmic than the bitwise operators.
             -- Larry Wall in <199709051808.LAA01780@wall.org>
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You tell it that it's indicative by appending $!.  That's why we made $!
such a short variable name, after all.  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <199709081801.LAA20629@wall.org>
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The choice of approaches could be made the responsibility of the
programmer.
             -- Larry Wall in <199709081901.MAA20863@wall.org>
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As someone pointed out, you could have an attribute that says "optimize
the heck out of this routine", and your definition of heck would be a
parameter to the optimizer.
             -- Larry Wall in <199709081854.LAA20830@wall.org>
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I guess what I'm saying is that the croak in question is requiring
agreement (in the linguistic sense) that isn't buying us anything.
             -- Larry Wall in <199709241628.JAA08908@wall.org>
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If you're going to define a shortcut, then make it the base [sic] darn
shortcut you can.
             -- Larry Wall in <199709241628.JAA08908@wall.org>
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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.
             -- Larry Wall in <199709241628.JAA08908@wall.org>
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It's getting harder and harder to think out loud.  One of these days
someone's gonna go off and kill Thomas a'Becket for me...
             -- Larry Wall in <199709242015.NAA10312@wall.org>
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I was about to say, "Avoid fame like the plague," but you know, they can
cure the plague with penicillin these days.
             -- Larry Wall in <199709242015.NAA10312@wall.org>
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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 in <199709251614.JAA15718@wall.org>
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Oh, wait, that was Randal...nevermind...
             -- Larry Wall in <199709261754.KAA23761@wall.org>
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:-) your own self.
             -- Larry Wall in <199709261754.KAA23761@wall.org>
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P.S.  I suppose I really should be nicer to people today, considering
I'll be singing in Billy Graham's choir tonight...   :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <199709261754.KAA23761@wall.org>
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Magically turning people's old scalar contexts into list contexts is a
recipe for several kinds of disaster.
             -- Larry Wall in <199709291631.JAA08648@wall.org>
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: The following (relative to AutoSplit 1.03) attempts to please everyone
: and perhaps pleases no one:

I think that's way cool.
             -- Larry Wall in <199709292015.NAA09627@wall.org>
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And we can always supply them with a program that makes identical files
into links to a single file.
             -- Larry Wall in <199709292012.NAA09616@wall.org>
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I wasn't recommending that we make the links for them, only provide them
with the tools to do so if they want to take the gamble (or the gambol).
             -- Larry Wall in <199709292259.PAA10407@wall.org>
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This has been planned for some time.  I guess we'll just have to find
someone with an exceptionally round tuit.
             -- Larry Wall in <199709302338.QAA17037@wall.org>
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    switch (ref $@) {
    OverflowError =>

warn "Dam needs to be drained";
    DomainError =>

warn "King needs to be trained";
    NuclearWarError =>

die;
    }
             -- Larry Wall in <199709302338.QAA17037@wall.org>
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I surely do hope that's a syntax error.
             -- Larry Wall in <199710011752.KAA21624@wall.org>
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Soitainly.  I was assuming that came with the OO-ness of it.
             -- Larry Wall in <199710011802.LAA21692@wall.org>
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Because the demand for it is low enough that it would be best handled
as an XSUB, and the demand for it is low enough that nobody has
bothered to write it as an XSUB.
             -- Larry Wall on in-place Perl sorting
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But that looks a little too much like a declaration for my tastes, when
in fact it isn't one.  So forget I mentioned it.
             -- Larry Wall in <199710011704.KAA21395@wall.org>
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I'm not sure whether that's actually useful...
             -- Larry Wall in <199710011704.KAA21395@wall.org>
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Anyway, my money is still on use strict vars . . .
             -- Larry Wall in <199710011704.KAA21395@wall.org>
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By rule #1, 5.005 should always allow localization of lexical @_ . . .
             -- Larry Wall in <199710011704.KAA21395@wall.org>
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I *know* it's weird, but strict vars already comes very, very close to
partitioning the crowd into those who can deal with local lexicals and
those who can't.
             -- Larry Wall in <199710050130.SAA04762@wall.org>
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If you remove stricture from a large Perl program currently, you're just
installing delayed bugs, whereas with this feature, you're installing an
instant bug that's easily fixed.  Whoopee.
             -- Larry Wall in <199710050130.SAA04762@wall.org>
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The reason I like hitching a ride on strict vars is that it cuts down
the number of rarely used pragmas people have to remember, yet provides
a way to get to the point where we might, just maybe, someday, make
local lexicals the default for everyone, without having useless pragmas
wandering around various programs, or using up another bit in $^H.
             -- Larry Wall in <199710050130.SAA04762@wall.org>
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I don't think it's worth washing hogs over.
             -- Larry Wall in <199710060253.TAA09723@wall.org>
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It's certainly easy to calculate the average attendance for Perl
conferences.
             -- Larry Wall in <199710071721.KAA19014@wall.org>
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Tcl tends to get ported to weird places like routers.
             -- Larry Wall in <199710071721.KAA19014@wall.org>
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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 in <199710071721.KAA19014@wall.org>
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I knew I'd hate COBOL the moment I saw they'd used "perform" instead of
"do".
             -- Larry Wall on a not-so-popular programming language
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Just don't make the '9' format pack/unpack numbers...  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <199710091434.HAA00838@wall.org>
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I think that's easier to read.  Pardon me.  Less difficult to read.
             -- Larry Wall in <199710120226.TAA06867@wall.org>
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That wouldn't be good enough.
             -- Larry Wall in <199710131621.JAA14907@wall.org>
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To ordinary folks, conversion is not always automatic.  It's something
that may or may not require explicit assistance.  See Billy Graham.  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <199710141738.KAA22289@wall.org>
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The prayer of serenity applies here.  To both of us.  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <199710141802.LAA22443@wall.org>
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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 in <199710161537.IAA07828@wall.org>
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It may be possible to get this condition from within Perl if a signal
handler runs at just the wrong moment.  Another point for Chip...  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <199710161546.IAA07885@wall.org>
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As pointed out in a followup, Real Perl Programmers prefer things to be
visually distinct.
             -- Larry Wall in <199710161841.LAA13208@wall.org>
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The Harvard Law states:  Under controlled conditions of light, temperature,
humidity, and nutrition, the organism will do as it damn well pleases.
             -- Larry Wall in <199710161841.LAA13208@wall.org>
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That should probably be written:
    no !@#$%^&*:@!semicolon
             -- Larry Wall in <199710161841.LAA13208@wall.org>
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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 in <199710171838.LAA24968@wall.org>
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Depends on how you define "always".  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <199710211647.JAA17957@wall.org>
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'Course, that doesn't work when 'a' contains parentheses.
             -- Larry Wall in <199710211647.JAA17957@wall.org>
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I was trying not to mention backtracking.  Which, of course, means that
yours is "righter" than mine, in a theoretical sense.
             -- Larry Wall in <199710211624.JAA17833@wall.org>
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Not that I'm against sneaking some notions into people's heads upon
occasion.  (Or blasting them in outright.)
             -- Larry Wall in <199710211624.JAA17833@wall.org>
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(To the extent that anyone but a Prolog programmer can understand \X totally.
(And to the extent that a Prolog programmer can understand "cut". :-))
             -- Larry Wall in <199710211624.JAA17833@wall.org>
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But you'll notice Perl has a goto.
             -- Larry Wall in <199710211624.JAA17833@wall.org>
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Suppose you're working on an optimizer to render \X unnecessary (or
rather, redundant, which isn't the same thing in my book).
             -- Larry Wall in <199710211624.JAA17833@wall.org>
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Wow, I'm being shot at from both sides.  That means I *must* be right.  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <199710211959.MAA18990@wall.org>
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You don't have to wait--you can have it in 5.004_54 or so.  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <199710221740.KAA24455@wall.org>
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There's something to be said for returning the whole syntax tree.
             -- Larry Wall in <199710221833.LAA24741@wall.org>
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It's not really a rule--it's more like a trend.
             -- Larry Wall in <199710221721.KAA24321@wall.org>
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Double *sigh*.  _04 is going onto thousands of CDs even as we speak,
so to speak.
             -- Larry Wall in <199710221718.KAA24299@wall.org>
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The code also assumes that it's difficult to misspell "a" or "b".  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <199710221731.KAA24396@wall.org>
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Well, hey, let's just make everything into a closure, and then we'll
have our general garbage collector, installed by "use less memory".
             -- Larry Wall in <199710221744.KAA24484@wall.org>
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No, that'd be silly.
             -- Larry Wall in <199710221710.KAA24242@wall.org>
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People who understand context would be steamed to have someone else
dictating how they can call it.
             -- Larry Wall in <199710221710.KAA24242@wall.org>
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For the sake of argument I'll ignore all your fighting words.
             -- Larry Wall in <199710221710.KAA24242@wall.org>
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Think of prototypes as a funny markup language--the interpretation is
left up to the rendering engine.
             -- Larry Wall in <199710221710.KAA24242@wall.org>
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Either approach may give birth to various sorts of monstrosities.
             -- Larry Wall in <199710221950.MAA25210@wall.org>
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The way these things go, there are probably 6 or 8 kludgey ways to do
it, and a better way that involves rethinking something that hasn't
been rethunk yet.
             -- Larry Wall in <199710221859.LAA24889@wall.org>
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Obviously your filters are throwing away mail from Randal.  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <199710221937.MAA25131@wall.org>
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Beauty?  What's that?
             -- Larry Wall in <199710221937.MAA25131@wall.org>
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Oh yeah.  Forgot about those.  Getting senile, I guess...
             -- Larry Wall in <199710261551.HAA17791@wall.org>
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'Course, I haven't weighed in yet.  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <199710281816.KAA29614@wall.org>
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I'm afraid my gut level reaction is basically, "'proceed' is cute, but
cute doesn't cut it in the emergency room."
             -- Larry Wall in <199710281816.KAA29614@wall.org>
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I suppose one could claim that an undocumented feature has no
semantics.  :-(
             -- Larry Wall in <199710290036.QAA01818@wall.org>
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: How would you disambiguate these situations?

By shooting the person who did the latter.
             -- Larry Wall in <199710290235.SAA02444@wall.org>
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Yes, we have consensus that we need 64 bit support.  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <199710291922.LAA07101@wall.org>
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:  - cut in regexps

I don't think we reached consensus on that.  We're still backtracking...
             -- Larry Wall in <199710291922.LAA07101@wall.org>
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Maybe it's time to break that.
             -- Larry Wall in <199710311718.JAA19082@wall.org>
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Boss: You forgot to assign the result of your map!

Hacker: Dang, I'm always forgetting my assignations...

Boss: And what's that "goto" doing there?!?

Hacker: Er, I guess my finger slipped when I was typing "getservbyport"...

Boss: Ah well, accidents will happen.  Maybe we should have picked APL.
             -- Larry Wall in <199710311732.JAA19169@wall.org>
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Perhaps they will have to outlaw sending random lists of words.  fee fie
foe foo [sic]
             -- Larry Wall in <199710311916.LAA19760@wall.org>
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Hey, if pi == 3, and three == 0, does that make pi == 0?  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <199711011926.LAA25557@wall.org>
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I think you're letting your knowledge of internals interfere with your
linguistic judgement here.
             -- Larry Wall in <199711011949.LAA25651@wall.org>
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(Never thought I'd be telling Malcolm and Ilya the same thing... :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <199711071819.KAA29909@wall.org>
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And other operators aren't so special syntactically, but weird
in other ways, like "scalar", and "goto".
             -- Larry Wall in <199711071749.JAA29751@wall.org>
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Portability should be the default.
             -- Larry Wall in <199711072201.OAA01123@wall.org>
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Actually, it also looks like we should optimize (13,2,42,8,'hike') into
a pp_padav copy as well.
             -- Larry Wall in <199711081945.LAA06315@wall.org>
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If this were Ada, I suppose we'd just constant fold 1/0 into

    die "Illegal division by zero"
             -- Larry Wall in <199711100226.SAA12549@wall.org>
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Are you perchance running on a 64-bit machine?
             -- Larry Wall in <199711102149.NAA16878@wall.org>
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Almost nothing in Perl serves a single purpose.
             -- Larry Wall in <199712040054.QAA13811@wall.org>
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There's some entertainment value in watching people juggle nitroglycerin.
             -- Larry Wall in <199712041747.JAA18908@wall.org>
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Reserve your abuse for your true friends.
             -- Larry Wall in <199712041852.KAA19364@wall.org>
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Er, Tom, I hate to be the one to point this out, but your fix list
is starting to resemble a feature list.  You must be human or something.
             -- Larry Wall in <199801081824.KAA29602@wall.org>
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It's hard to tune heavily tuned code.  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <199801141725.JAA07555@wall.org>
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Perl will always provide the null.
             -- Larry Wall in <199801151818.KAA14538@wall.org>
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It's easy to solve the halting problem with a shotgun.   :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <199801151836.KAA14656@wall.org>
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Well, I think Perl should run faster than C.  :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <199801200306.TAA11638@wall.org>
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To Perl, or not to Perl, that is the kvetching.
             -- Larry Wall in <199801200310.TAA11670@wall.org>
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