Commit ec48a33

xxwhirlpool  ·  2025-09-05 13:16:29 -0400 EDT
parent eae0a08 
add larry wall fortune file
3 files changed,  +1417, -0
A config/.local/fortune/larrywall/Makefile
A config/.local/fortune/larrywall/larrywall
A config/.local/fortune/larrywall/larrywall.dat
A config/.local/fortune/larrywall/Makefile
+2, -0
......@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
1+larrywall.dat: larrywall
2+ @strfile larrywall larrywall.dat
A config/.local/fortune/larrywall/larrywall
+1415, -0
......@@ -0,0 +1,1415 @@
1+All language designers are arrogant. Goes with the territory... :-)
2+ -- Larry Wall in <1991Jul13.010945.19157@netlabs.com
3+%
4+Although the Perl Slogan is There's More Than One Way to Do It, I hesitate
5+to make 10 ways to do something. :-)
6+ -- Larry Wall in <9695@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
7+%
8+And don't tell me there isn't one bit of difference between null and space,
9+because that's exactly how much difference there is. :-)
10+ -- Larry Wall in <10209@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
11+%
12+"And I don't like doing silly things (except on purpose)."
13+ -- Larry Wall in <1992Jul3.191825.14435@netlabs.com>
14+%
15+: And it goes against the grain of building small tools.
16+Innocent, Your Honor. Perl users build small tools all day long.
17+ -- Larry Wall in <1992Aug26.184221.29627@netlabs.com>
18+%
19+/* And you'll never guess what the dog had */
20+/* in its mouth... */
21+ -- Larry Wall in stab.c from the perl source code
22+%
23+Because . doesn't match \n. [\0-\377] is the most efficient way to match
24+everything currently. Maybe \e should match everything. And \E would
25+of course match nothing. :-)
26+ -- Larry Wall in <9847@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
27+%
28+Be consistent.
29+ -- Larry Wall in the perl man page
30+%
31+Besides, including <std_ice_cubes.h> is a fatal error on machines that
32+don't have it yet. Bad language design, there... :-)
33+ -- Larry Wall in <1991Aug22.220929.6857@netlabs.com>
34+%
35+Besides, it's good to force C programmers to use the toolbox occasionally. :-)
36+ -- Larry Wall in <1991May31.181659.28817@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov>
37+%
38+Besides, REAL computers have a rename() system call. :-)
39+ -- Larry Wall in <7937@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
40+%
41+break; /* don't do magic till later */
42+ -- Larry Wall in stab.c from the perl source code
43+%
44+But you have to allow a little for the desire to evangelize when you
45+think you have good news.
46+ -- Larry Wall in <1992Aug26.184221.29627@netlabs.com>
47+%
48+Chip Salzenberg sent me a complete patch to add System V IPC (msg, sem and
49+shm calls), so I added them. If that bothers you, you can always undefine
50+them in config.sh. :-) -- Larry Wall in <9384@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
51+%
52+/* dbmrefcnt--; */ /* doesn't work, rats */
53+ -- Larry Wall in hash.c from the perl source code
54+%
55+#define NULL 0 /* silly thing is, we don't even use this */
56+ -- Larry Wall in perl.c from the perl source code
57+%
58+#define SIGILL 6 /* blech */
59+ -- Larry Wall in perl.c from the perl source code
60+%
61+Does the same as the system call of that name.
62+If you don't know what it does, don't worry about it.
63+ -- Larry Wall in the perl man page regarding chroot(2)
64+%
65+double value; /* or your money back! */
66+short changed; /* so triple your money back! */
67+ -- Larry Wall in cons.c from the perl source code
68+%
69+Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is
70+paved with melting snowballs.
71+ -- Larry Wall in <1992Jul2.222039.26476@netlabs.com>
72+%
73+echo "Congratulations. You aren't running Eunice."
74+ -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution
75+%
76+echo "Hmmm...you don't have Berkeley networking in libc.a..."
77+echo "but the Wollongong group seems to have hacked it in."
78+ -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution
79+%
80+echo "ICK, NOTHING WORKED!!! You may have to diddle the includes.";;
81+ -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution
82+%
83+echo $package has manual pages available in source form.
84+echo "However, you don't have nroff, so they're probably useless to you."
85+ -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution
86+%
87+echo "Your stdio isn't very std."
88+ -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution
89+%
90+#else /* !STDSTDIO */ /* The big, slow, and stupid way */
91+ -- Larry Wall in str.c from the perl source code
92+%
93+[End of diatribe. We now return you to your regularly scheduled
94+programming...]
95+ -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution
96+%
97+Even if you aren't in doubt, consider the mental welfare of the person who
98+has to maintain the code after you, and who will probably put parens in
99+the wrong place. -- Larry Wall in the perl man page
100+%
101+"Help save the world!" -- Larry Wall in README
102+%
103+Hey, I had to let awk be better at *something*... :-)
104+ -- Larry Wall in <1991Nov7.200504.25280@netlabs.com>1
105+%
106+I already have too much problem with people thinking the efficiency of
107+a perl construct is related to its length. On the other hand, I'm
108+perfectly capable of changing my mind next week... :-) --lwall
109+%
110+I don't know if it's what you want, but it's what you get. :-)
111+ -- Larry Wall in <10502@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
112+%
113+I dunno, I dream in Perl sometimes...
114+ -- Larry Wall in <8538@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
115+%
116+If I allowed "next $label" then I'd also have to allow "goto $label",
117+and I don't think you really want that... :-)
118+ -- Larry Wall in <1991Mar11.230002.27271@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov>
119+%
120+If I don't document something, it's usually either for a good reason,
121+or a bad reason. In this case it's a good reason. :-)
122+ -- Larry Wall in <1992Jan17.005405.16806@netlabs.com>
123+%
124+"I find this a nice feature but it is not according to the documentation.
125+Or is it a BUG?"
126+"Let's call it an accidental feature. :-)"
127+ -- Larry Wall in <6909@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
128+%
129+if (instr(buf,sys_errlist[errno])) /* you don't see this */
130+ -- Larry Wall in eval.c from the perl source code
131+%
132+if (rsfp = mypopen("/bin/mail root","w")) { /* heh, heh */
133+ -- Larry Wall in perl.c from the perl source code
134+%
135+If you consistently take an antagonistic approach, however, people are
136+going to start thinking you're from New York. :-)
137+ -- Larry Wall to Dan Bernstein in <10187@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
138+%
139+If you want to program in C, program in C. It's a nice language. I
140+use it occasionally... :-)
141+ -- Larry Wall in <7577@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
142+%
143+If you want to see useful Perl examples, we can certainly arrange to have
144+comp.lang.misc flooded with them, but I don't think that would help the
145+advance of civilization. :-)
146+ -- Larry Wall in <1992Mar5.180926.19041@netlabs.com>
147+%
148+If you want your program to be readable, consider supplying the argument.
149+ -- Larry Wall in the perl man page
150+%
151+I know it's weird, but it does make it easier to write poetry in perl. :-)
152+ -- Larry Wall in <7865@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
153+%
154+I'll say it again for the logic impaired.
155+ -- Larry Wall
156+%
157+I might be able to shoehorn a reference count in on top of the numeric
158+value by disallowing multiple references on scalars with a numeric value,
159+but it wouldn't be as clean. I do occasionally worry about that. --lwall
160+%
161+I'm sure that that could be indented more readably, but I'm scared of
162+the awk parser.
163+ -- Larry Wall in <6849@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
164+%
165+In general, if you think something isn't in Perl, try it out, because it
166+usually is. :-)
167+ -- Larry Wall in <1991Jul31.174523.9447@netlabs.com>
168+%
169+In general, they do what you want, unless you want consistency.
170+ -- Larry Wall in the perl man page
171+%
172+Interestingly enough, since subroutine declarations can come anywhere,
173+you wouldn't have to put BEGIN {} at the beginning, nor END {} at the
174+end. Interesting, no? I wonder if Henry would like it. :-) --lwall
175+%
176+I think it's a new feature. Don't tell anyone it was an accident. :-)
177+ -- Larry Wall on s/foo/bar/eieio in <10911@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
178+%
179+"It is easier to port a shell than a shell script."
180+ -- Larry Wall
181+%
182+It is, of course, written in Perl. Translation to C is left as an
183+exercise for the reader. :-) -- Larry Wall in <7448@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
184+%
185+It's all magic. :-)
186+ -- Larry Wall in <7282@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
187+%
188+It's documented in The Book, somewhere...
189+ -- Larry Wall in <10502@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
190+%
191+> (It's sorta like sed, but not. It's sorta like awk, but not. etc.)
192+Guilty as charged. Perl is happily ugly, and happily derivative.
193+ -- Larry Wall in <1992Aug26.184221.29627@netlabs.com>
194+%
195+It's there as a sop to former Ada programmers. :-)
196+ -- Larry Wall regarding 10_000_000 in <11556@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
197+%
198+It won't be covered in the book. The source code has to be useful for
199+something, after all... :-)
200+ -- Larry Wall in <10160@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
201+%
202+: I've heard that there is a shell (bourne or csh) to perl filter, does
203+: anyone know of this or where I can get it?
204+Yeah, you filter it through Tom Christiansen. :-) -- Larry Wall
205+%
206+: I've tried (in vi) "g/[a-z]\n[a-z]/s//_/"...but that doesn't
207+: cut it. Any ideas? (I take it that it may be a two-pass sort of solution).
208+In the first pass, install perl. :-)
209+ -- Larry Wall <6849@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
210+%
211+I won't mention any names, because I don't want to get sun4's into
212+trouble... :-) -- Larry Wall in <11333@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
213+%
214+Just don't compare it with a real language, or you'll be unhappy... :-)
215+ -- Larry Wall in <1992May12.190238.5667@netlabs.com>
216+%
217+Just don't create a file called -rf. :-)
218+ -- Larry Wall in <11393@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
219+%
220+last|perl -pe '$_ x=/(..:..)...(.*)/&&"'$1'"ge$1&&"'$1'"lt$2'
221+That's gonna be tough for Randal to beat... :-)
222+ -- Larry Wall in <1991Apr29.072206.5621@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov>
223+%
224+Let's say the docs present a simplified view of reality... :-)
225+ -- Larry Wall in <6940@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
226+%
227+Let us be charitable, and call it a misleading feature :-)
228+ -- Larry Wall in <2609@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov>
229+%
230+Lispers are among the best grads of the Sweep-It-Under-Someone-Else's-Carpet
231+School of Simulated Simplicity. [Was that sufficiently incendiary? :-)]
232+ -- Larry Wall in <1992Jan10.201804.11926@netlabs.com
233+%
234+No, I'm not going to explain it. If you can't figure it out, you didn't
235+want to know anyway... :-)
236+ -- Larry Wall in <1991Aug7.180856.2854@netlabs.com>
237+%
238+/* now make a new head in the exact same spot */
239+ -- Larry Wall in cons.c from the perl source code
240+%
241+OK, enough hype.
242+ -- Larry Wall in the perl man page
243+%
244+OOPS! You naughty creature! You didn't run Configure with sh!
245+I will attempt to remedy the situation by running sh for you...
246+ -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution
247+%
248+Perl is designed to give you several ways to do anything, so
249+consider picking the most readable one.
250+ -- Larry Wall in the perl man page
251+%
252+Perl itself is usually pretty good about telling you what you shouldn't
253+do. :-)
254+ -- Larry Wall in <11091@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
255+%
256+Perl programming is an *empirical* science!
257+ -- Larry Wall in <10226@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
258+%
259+pos += screamnext[pos] /* does this goof up anywhere? */
260+ -- Larry Wall in util.c from the perl source code
261+%
262+Q. Why is this so clumsy?
263+A. The trick is to use Perl's strengths rather than its weaknesses.
264+ -- Larry Wall in <8225@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
265+%
266+Randal said it would be tough to do in sed. He didn't say he didn't
267+understand sed. Randal understands sed quite well. Which is why he
268+uses Perl. :-) -- Larry Wall in <7874@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
269+%
270+Real programmers can write assembly code in any language. :-)
271+ -- Larry Wall in <8571@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
272+%
273+Remember though that
274+THERE IS NO GENERAL RULE FOR CONVERTING A LIST INTO A SCALAR.
275+ -- Larry Wall in the perl man page
276+%
277+s = (char*)(long)retval; /* ouch */
278+ -- Larry Wall in doio.c from the perl source code
279+%
280+signal(i, SIG_DFL); /* crunch, crunch, crunch */
281+ -- Larry Wall in doarg.c from the perl source code
282+%
283+Sorry. My testing organization is either too small, or too large, depending
284+on how you look at it. :-)
285+ -- Larry Wall in <1991Apr22.175438.8564@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov>
286+%
287+stab_val(stab)->str_nok = 1; /* what a wonderful hack! */
288+ -- Larry Wall in stab.c from the perl source code
289+%
290+str->str_pok |= SP_FBM; /* deep magic */
291+s = (unsigned char*)(str->str_ptr); /* deeper magic */
292+ -- Larry Wall in util.c from the perl source code
293+%
294+Tactical? TACTICAL!?!? Hey, buddy, we went from kilotons to megatons
295+several minutes ago. We don't need no stinkin' tactical nukes.
296+(By the way, do you have change for 10 million people?) --lwall
297+%
298+That means I'll have to use $ans to suppress newlines now.
299+Life is ridiculous.
300+ -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution
301+%
302+The autodecrement is not magical.
303+ -- Larry Wall in the perl man page
304+%
305+The only disadvantage I see is that it would force everyone to get Perl.
306+Horrors. :-)
307+ -- Larry Wall in <8854@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
308+%
309+*** The previous line contains the naughty word "$&".\n
310+if /(ibm|apple|awk)/; # :-)
311+ -- Larry Wall in the perl man page
312+%
313+There ain't nothin' in this world that's worth being a snot over.
314+ -- Larry Wall in <1992Aug19.041614.6963@netlabs.com>
315+%
316+There are many times when you want it to ignore the rest of the string just
317+like atof() does. Oddly enough, Perl calls atof(). How convenient. :-)
318+ -- Larry Wall in <1991Jun24.231628.14446@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov>
319+%
320+There are probably better ways to do that, but it would make the parser
321+more complex. I do, occasionally, struggle feebly against complexity... :-)
322+ -- Larry Wall in <7886@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
323+%
324+There are still some other things to do, so don't think if I didn't fix
325+your favorite bug that your bug report is in the bit bucket. (It may be,
326+but don't think it. :-) Larry Wall in <7238@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
327+%
328+There is, however, a strange, musty smell in the air that reminds me of
329+something...hmm...yes...I've got it...there's a VMS nearby, or I'm a Blit.
330+ -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution
331+%
332+"The road to hell is paved with melting snowballs."
333+ -- Larry Wall in <1992Jul2.222039.26476@netlabs.com>
334+%
335+/* This bit of chicanery makes a unary function followed by
336+a parenthesis into a function with one argument, highest precedence. */
337+ -- Larry Wall in toke.c from the perl source code
338+%
339+"...this does not mean that some of us should not want, in a rather
340+dispassionate sort of way, to put a bullet through csh's head."
341+Larry Wall in <1992Aug6.221512.5963@netlabs.com>
342+%
343+> This made me wonder, suddenly: can telnet be written in perl?
344+Of course it can be written in Perl. Now if you'd said nroff,
345+that would be more challenging... -- Larry Wall
346+%
347+Though I'll admit readability suffers slightly...
348+ -- Larry Wall in <2969@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov>
349+%
350+tmps_base = tmps_max; /* protect our mortal string */
351+ -- Larry Wall in stab.c from the perl source code
352+%
353+Unix is like a toll road on which you have to stop every 50 feet to
354+pay another nickel. But hey! You only feel 5 cents poorer each time.
355+ -- Larry Wall in <1992Aug13.192357.15731@netlabs.com>
356+%
357+"We all agree on the necessity of compromise. We just can't agree on
358+when it's necessary to compromise."
359+ -- Larry Wall in <1991Nov13.194420.28091@netlabs.com>
360+%
361+/* we have tried to make this normal case as abnormal as possible */
362+ -- Larry Wall in cmd.c from the perl source code
363+%
364+What about WRITING it first and rationalizing it afterwords? :-)
365+ -- Larry Wall in <8162@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
366+%
367+: 1. What is the possibility of this being added in the future?
368+In the near future, the probability is close to zero. In the distant
369+future, I'll be dead, and posterity can do whatever they like... :-) --lwall
370+%
371+"What is the sound of Perl? Is it not the sound of a wall that
372+people have stopped banging their heads against?"
373+ -- Larry Wall in <1992Aug26.184221.29627@netlabs.com>
374+%
375+When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some
376+poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi.
377+ -- Larry Wall in the perl man page
378+%
379+"You can't have filenames longer than 14 chars.
380+You can't even think about them!"
381+ -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution
382+%
383+You have to admit that it's difficult to misplace the Perl sources. :-)
384+ -- Larry Wall in <1992Aug26.184221.29627@netlabs.com>
385+%
386+Your csh still thinks true is false. Write to your vendor today and tell
387+them that next year Configure ought to "rm /bin/csh" unless they fix their
388+blasted shell. :-) -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution
389+%
390+You want it in one line? Does it have to fit in 80 columns? :-)
391+ -- Larry Wall in <7349@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
392+%
393+Well, enough clowning around. Perl is, in intent, a cleaned up and
394+summarized version of that wonderful semi-natural language known as
395+"Unix".
396+ -- Larry Wall in <1994Apr6.184419.3687@netlabs.com>
397+%
398+Anyway, there's plenty of room for doubt. It might seem easy enough,
399+but computer language design is just like a stroll in the park.
400+
401+Jurassic Park, that is.
402+ -- Larry Wall in <1994Jun15.074039.2654@netlabs.com>
403+%
404+I want to see people using Perl to glue things together creatively, not
405+just technically but also socially.
406+ -- Larry Wall in <199702111730.JAA28598@wall.org>
407+%
408+The whole history of computers is rampant with cheerleading at best and
409+bigotry at worst.
410+ -- Larry Wall in <199702111730.JAA28598@wall.org>
411+%
412+If someone stinks, view it as a reason to help them, not a reason to
413+avoid them.
414+ -- Larry Wall in <199702111730.JAA28598@wall.org>
415+%
416+As usual, I'm overstating the case to knock a few neurons loose, but the
417+truth is usually somewhere in the muddle, uh, middle.
418+ -- Larry Wall in <199702111639.IAA28425@wall.org>
419+%
420+Odd that we think definitions are definitive. :-)
421+ -- Larry Wall in <199702221943.LAA20388@wall.org>
422+%
423+: But for some things, Perl just isn't the optimal choice.
424+
425+(yet) :-)
426+ -- Larry Wall in <199702221943.LAA20388@wall.org>
427+%
428+I don't like this official/unofficial distinction. It sound, er, officious.
429+ -- Larry Wall in <199702221943.LAA20388@wall.org>
430+%
431+If you write something wrong enough, I'll be glad to make up a new
432+witticism just for you.
433+ -- Larry Wall in <199702221943.LAA20388@wall.org>
434+%
435+So far we've managed to avoid turning Perl into APL. :-)
436+ -- Larry Wall in <199702251904.LAA28261@wall.org>
437+%
438+Not that I have anything much against redundancy. But I said that already.
439+ -- Larry Wall in <199702271735.JAA04048@wall.org>
440+%
441+They can always run stderr through uniq. :-)
442+ -- Larry Wall in <199704012331.PAA16535@wall.org>
443+%
444+I'd put my money where my mouth is, but my mouth keeps moving.
445+ -- Larry Wall in <199704051723.JAA28035@wall.org>
446+%
447+Of course, I reserve the right to make wholly stupid changes to Perl
448+if I think they improve the language. :-)
449+ -- Larry Wall in <199704251604.JAA27300@wall.org>
450+%
451+Call me bored, but don't call me boring.
452+ -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org>
453+%
454+I think $[ is more like a coelacanth than a mastadon.
455+ -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org>
456+%
457+We question most of the mantras around here periodically, in case
458+you hadn't noticed. :-)
459+ -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org>
460+%
461+(Presuming for the sake of argument that it's even *possible* to design
462+better code in Perl than in C. :-)
463+ -- Larry Wall on core code vs. module code design
464+%
465+That could certainly be done, but I don't want to fall into the Forth
466+trap, where every running Forth implementation is really a different
467+language.
468+ -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org>
469+%
470+Tcl long ago fell into the Forth trap, and is now trying desperately to
471+extricate itself (with some help from Sun's marketing department).
472+ -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org>
473+%
474+The whole intent of Perl 5's module system was to encourage the growth
475+of Perl culture rather than the Perl core.
476+ -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org>
477+%
478+Randal can write one-liners again. Everyone is happy, and peace spreads
479+over the whole Earth.
480+ -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org>
481+%
482+Life gets boring, someone invents another necessity, and once again we
483+turn the crank on the screwjack of progress hoping that nobody gets
484+screwed.
485+ -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org>
486+%
487+No prisoner's dilemma here. Over the long term, symbiosis is more
488+useful than parasitism. More fun, too. Ask any mitochondria.
489+ -- Larry Wall in <199705102042.NAA00851@wall.org>
490+%
491+Obviously I was either onto something, or on something.
492+ -- Larry Wall on the creation of Perl
493+%
494+It's the Magic that counts.
495+ -- Larry Wall on Perl's apparent ugliness
496+%
497+May you do Good Magic with Perl.
498+ -- Larry Wall's blessing
499+%
500+P.S. Perl's master plan (or what passes for one) is to take over the
501+world like English did. Er, *as* English did...
502+ -- Larry Wall in <199705201832.LAA28393@wall.org>
503+%
504+You can prove anything by mentioning another computer language. :-)
505+ -- Larry Wall in <199706242038.NAA29853@wall.org>
506+%
507+I think you didn't get a reply because you used the terms "correct" and
508+"proper", neither of which has much meaning in Perl culture. :-)
509+ -- Larry Wall in <199706251602.JAA01786@wall.org>
510+%
511+I'm sure a mathematician would claim that 0 and 1 are both very
512+interesting numbers. :-)
513+ -- Larry Wall in <199707300650.XAA05515@wall.org>
514+%
515+True, it returns "" for false, but "" is an even more interesting
516+number than 0.
517+ -- Larry Wall in <199707300650.XAA05515@wall.org>
518+%
519+Any false value is gonna be fairly boring in Perl, mathematicians
520+notwithstanding.
521+ -- Larry Wall in <199707300650.XAA05515@wall.org>
522+%
523+We didn't put in ^^ because then we'd have to keep telling people what
524+it means, and then we'd have to keep telling them why it doesn't short
525+circuit. :-/
526+ -- Larry Wall in <199707300650.XAA05515@wall.org>
527+%
528+Anybody want a binary telemetry frame editor written in Perl?
529+ -- Larry Wall in <199708012226.PAA22015@wall.org>
530+%
531+Perhaps I'm missing the gene for making enemies. :-)
532+ -- Larry Wall in <199708040319.UAA16213@wall.org>
533+%
534+Perl has a long tradition of working around compilers.
535+ -- Larry Wall in <199708252256.PAA00105@wall.org>
536+%
537+Personally, I like to defiantly split my infinitives. :-)
538+ -- Larry Wall in <199708271551.IAA10211@wall.org>
539+%
540+Real theology is always rather shocking to people who already
541+think they know what they think. I'm still shocked myself. :-)
542+ -- Larry Wall in <199708261932.MAA05218@wall.org>
543+%
544+The computer should be doing the hard work. That's what it's paid to do,
545+after all.
546+ -- Larry Wall in <199709012312.QAA08121@wall.org>
547+%
548+The following two statements are usually both true:
549+ There's not enough documentation.
550+ There's too much documentation.
551+ -- Larry Wall in <199709020026.RAA08431@wall.org>
552+%
553+Of course, this being Perl, we could always take both approaches. :-)
554+ -- Larry Wall in <199709021744.KAA12428@wall.org>
555+%
556+The random quantum fluctuations of my brain are historical accidents that
557+happen to have decided that the concepts of dynamic scoping and lexical
558+scoping are orthogonal and should remain that way.
559+ -- Larry Wall in <199709021854.LAA12794@wall.org>
560+%
561+At many levels, Perl is a "diagonal" language.
562+ -- Larry Wall in <199709021854.LAA12794@wall.org>
563+%
564+I'm serious about thinking through all the possibilities before we
565+settle on anything. All things have the advantages of their
566+disadvantages, and vice versa.
567+ -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org>
568+%
569+Part of language design is purturbing the proposed feature in various
570+directions to see how it might generalize in the future.
571+ -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org>
572+%
573+Sometimes we choose the generalization. Sometimes we don't.
574+ -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org>
575+%
576+I wouldn't ever write the full sentence myself, but then, I never use
577+goto either.
578+ -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org>
579+%
580+It's appositival, if it's there. And it doesn't have to be there.
581+And it's really obvious that it's there when it's there.
582+ -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org>
583+%
584+Oh, get ahold of yourself. Nobody's proposing that we parse English.
585+ -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org>
586+%
587+As with all the other proposals, it's basically just a list of words.
588+You can deal with that... :-)
589+ -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org>
590+%
591+I hope I'm not getting so famous that I can't think out load [sic] anymore.
592+ -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org>
593+%
594+It would be possible to optimize some forms of goto, but I haven't
595+bothered.
596+ -- Larry Wall in <199709041935.MAA27136@wall.org>
597+%
598+A "goto" in Perl falls into the category of hard things that should be
599+possible, not easy things that should be easy.
600+ -- Larry Wall in <199709041935.MAA27136@wall.org>
601+%
602+How do Crays and Alphas handle the POSIX problem?
603+ -- Larry Wall in <199709050042.RAA29379@wall.org>
604+%
605+Well, that's more-or-less what I was saying, though obviously addition
606+is a little more cosmic than the bitwise operators.
607+ -- Larry Wall in <199709051808.LAA01780@wall.org>
608+%
609+You tell it that it's indicative by appending $!. That's why we made $!
610+such a short variable name, after all. :-)
611+ -- Larry Wall in <199709081801.LAA20629@wall.org>
612+%
613+The choice of approaches could be made the responsibility of the
614+programmer.
615+ -- Larry Wall in <199709081901.MAA20863@wall.org>
616+%
617+As someone pointed out, you could have an attribute that says "optimize
618+the heck out of this routine", and your definition of heck would be a
619+parameter to the optimizer.
620+ -- Larry Wall in <199709081854.LAA20830@wall.org>
621+%
622+If you're going to define a shortcut, then make it the base [sic] darn
623+shortcut you can.
624+ -- Larry Wall in <199709241628.JAA08908@wall.org>
625+%
626+It is my job in life to travel all roads, so that some may take the road
627+less travelled, and others the road more travelled, and all have a
628+pleasant day.
629+ -- Larry Wall in <199709241628.JAA08908@wall.org>
630+%
631+It's getting harder and harder to think out loud. One of these days
632+someone's gonna go off and kill Thomas a'Becket for me...
633+ -- Larry Wall in <199709242015.NAA10312@wall.org>
634+%
635+I was about to say, "Avoid fame like the plague," but you know, they can
636+cure the plague with penicillin these days.
637+ -- Larry Wall in <199709242015.NAA10312@wall.org>
638+%
639+But the possibility of abuse may be a good reason for leaving
640+capabilities out of other computer languages, it's not a good reason for
641+leaving capabilities out of Perl.
642+ -- Larry Wall in <199709251614.JAA15718@wall.org>
643+%
644+Oh, wait, that was Randal...nevermind...
645+ -- Larry Wall in <199709261754.KAA23761@wall.org>
646+%
647+P.S. I suppose I really should be nicer to people today, considering
648+I'll be singing in Billy Graham's choir tonight... :-)
649+ -- Larry Wall in <199709261754.KAA23761@wall.org>
650+%
651+Magically turning people's old scalar contexts into list contexts is a
652+recipe for several kinds of disaster.
653+ -- Larry Wall in <199709291631.JAA08648@wall.org>
654+%
655+And we can always supply them with a program that makes identical files
656+into links to a single file.
657+ -- Larry Wall in <199709292012.NAA09616@wall.org>
658+%
659+I wasn't recommending that we make the links for them, only provide them
660+with the tools to do so if they want to take the gamble (or the gambol).
661+ -- Larry Wall in <199709292259.PAA10407@wall.org>
662+%
663+This has been planned for some time. I guess we'll just have to find
664+someone with an exceptionally round tuit.
665+ -- Larry Wall in <199709302338.QAA17037@wall.org>
666+%
667+ switch (ref $@) {
668+ OverflowError =>
669+ warn "Dam needs to be drained";
670+ DomainError =>
671+ warn "King needs to be trained";
672+ NuclearWarError =>
673+ die;
674+ }
675+ -- Larry Wall in <199709302338.QAA17037@wall.org>
676+%
677+I surely do hope that's a syntax error.
678+ -- Larry Wall in <199710011752.KAA21624@wall.org>
679+%
680+Anyway, my money is still on use strict vars . . .
681+ -- Larry Wall in <199710011704.KAA21395@wall.org>
682+%
683+If you remove stricture from a large Perl program currently, you're just
684+installing delayed bugs, whereas with this feature, you're installing an
685+instant bug that's easily fixed. Whoopee.
686+ -- Larry Wall in <199710050130.SAA04762@wall.org>
687+%
688+I don't think it's worth washing hogs over.
689+ -- Larry Wall in <199710060253.TAA09723@wall.org>
690+%
691+It's certainly easy to calculate the average attendance for Perl
692+conferences.
693+ -- Larry Wall in <199710071721.KAA19014@wall.org>
694+%
695+Tcl tends to get ported to weird places like routers.
696+ -- Larry Wall in <199710071721.KAA19014@wall.org>
697+%
698+Historically Tcl has always stored all intermediate results as strings.
699+(With 8.0 they're rethinking that. Of course, Perl rethought that from
700+the start.)
701+ -- Larry Wall in <199710071721.KAA19014@wall.org>
702+%
703+I knew I'd hate COBOL the moment I saw they'd used "perform" instead of
704+"do".
705+ -- Larry Wall on a not-so-popular programming language
706+%
707+Just don't make the '9' format pack/unpack numbers... :-)
708+ -- Larry Wall in <199710091434.HAA00838@wall.org>
709+%
710+I think that's easier to read. Pardon me. Less difficult to read.
711+ -- Larry Wall in <199710120226.TAA06867@wall.org>
712+%
713+To ordinary folks, conversion is not always automatic. It's something
714+that may or may not require explicit assistance. See Billy Graham. :-)
715+ -- Larry Wall in <199710141738.KAA22289@wall.org>
716+%
717+Well, you can implement a Perl peek() with unpack('P',...). Once you
718+have that, there's only security through obscurity. :-)
719+ -- Larry Wall in <199710161537.IAA07828@wall.org>
720+%
721+It may be possible to get this condition from within Perl if a signal
722+handler runs at just the wrong moment. Another point for Chip... :-)
723+ -- Larry Wall in <199710161546.IAA07885@wall.org>
724+%
725+As pointed out in a followup, Real Perl Programmers prefer things to be
726+visually distinct.
727+ -- Larry Wall in <199710161841.LAA13208@wall.org>
728+%
729+The Harvard Law states: Under controlled conditions of light, temperature,
730+humidity, and nutrition, the organism will do as it damn well pleases.
731+ -- Larry Wall in <199710161841.LAA13208@wall.org>
732+%
733+That should probably be written:
734+ no !@#$%^&*:@!semicolon
735+ -- Larry Wall in <199710161841.LAA13208@wall.org>
736+%
737+That gets us out of deciding how to spell Reg[eE]xp?|RE . . .
738+Of course, then we have to decide what ref $re returns... :-)
739+ -- Larry Wall in <199710171838.LAA24968@wall.org>
740+%
741+'Course, that doesn't work when 'a' contains parentheses.
742+ -- Larry Wall in <199710211647.JAA17957@wall.org>
743+%
744+I was trying not to mention backtracking. Which, of course, means that
745+yours is "righter" than mine, in a theoretical sense.
746+ -- Larry Wall in <199710211624.JAA17833@wall.org>
747+%
748+Not that I'm against sneaking some notions into people's heads upon
749+occasion. (Or blasting them in outright.)
750+ -- Larry Wall in <199710211624.JAA17833@wall.org>
751+%
752+(To the extent that anyone but a Prolog programmer can understand \X totally.
753+(And to the extent that a Prolog programmer can understand "cut". :-))
754+ -- Larry Wall in <199710211624.JAA17833@wall.org>
755+%
756+Wow, I'm being shot at from both sides. That means I *must* be right. :-)
757+ -- Larry Wall in <199710211959.MAA18990@wall.org>
758+%
759+You don't have to wait--you can have it in 5.004_54 or so. :-)
760+ -- Larry Wall in <199710221740.KAA24455@wall.org>
761+%
762+There's something to be said for returning the whole syntax tree.
763+ -- Larry Wall in <199710221833.LAA24741@wall.org>
764+%
765+It's not really a rule--it's more like a trend.
766+ -- Larry Wall in <199710221721.KAA24321@wall.org>
767+%
768+Double *sigh*. _04 is going onto thousands of CDs even as we speak,
769+so to speak.
770+ -- Larry Wall in <199710221718.KAA24299@wall.org>
771+%
772+The code also assumes that it's difficult to misspell "a" or "b". :-)
773+ -- Larry Wall in <199710221731.KAA24396@wall.org>
774+%
775+Well, hey, let's just make everything into a closure, and then we'll
776+have our general garbage collector, installed by "use less memory".
777+ -- Larry Wall in <199710221744.KAA24484@wall.org>
778+%
779+People who understand context would be steamed to have someone else
780+dictating how they can call it.
781+ -- Larry Wall in <199710221710.KAA24242@wall.org>
782+%
783+For the sake of argument I'll ignore all your fighting words.
784+ -- Larry Wall in <199710221710.KAA24242@wall.org>
785+%
786+Think of prototypes as a funny markup language--the interpretation is
787+left up to the rendering engine.
788+ -- Larry Wall in <199710221710.KAA24242@wall.org>
789+%
790+The way these things go, there are probably 6 or 8 kludgey ways to do
791+it, and a better way that involves rethinking something that hasn't
792+been rethunk yet.
793+ -- Larry Wall in <199710221859.LAA24889@wall.org>
794+%
795+Beauty? What's that?
796+ -- Larry Wall in <199710221937.MAA25131@wall.org>
797+%
798+I'm afraid my gut level reaction is basically, "'proceed' is cute, but
799+cute doesn't cut it in the emergency room."
800+ -- Larry Wall in <199710281816.KAA29614@wall.org>
801+%
802+I suppose one could claim that an undocumented feature has no
803+semantics. :-(
804+ -- Larry Wall in <199710290036.QAA01818@wall.org>
805+%
806+Yes, we have consensus that we need 64 bit support. :-)
807+ -- Larry Wall in <199710291922.LAA07101@wall.org>
808+%
809+: - cut in regexps
810+
811+I don't think we reached consensus on that. We're still backtracking...
812+ -- Larry Wall in <199710291922.LAA07101@wall.org>
813+%
814+Boss: You forgot to assign the result of your map!
815+Hacker: Dang, I'm always forgetting my assignations...
816+Boss: And what's that "goto" doing there?!?
817+Hacker: Er, I guess my finger slipped when I was typing "getservbyport"...
818+Boss: Ah well, accidents will happen. Maybe we should have picked APL.
819+ -- Larry Wall in <199710311732.JAA19169@wall.org>
820+%
821+Perhaps they will have to outlaw sending random lists of words. fee fie
822+foe foo
823+ -- Larry Wall in <199710311916.LAA19760@wall.org>
824+%
825+Hey, if pi == 3, and three == 0, does that make pi == 0? :-)
826+ -- Larry Wall in <199711011926.LAA25557@wall.org>
827+%
828+(Never thought I'd be telling Malcolm and Ilya the same thing... :-)
829+ -- Larry Wall in <199711071819.KAA29909@wall.org>
830+%
831+And other operators aren't so special syntactically, but weird
832+in other ways, like "scalar", and "goto".
833+ -- Larry Wall in <199711071749.JAA29751@wall.org>
834+%
835+Portability should be the default.
836+ -- Larry Wall in <199711072201.OAA01123@wall.org>
837+%
838+If this were Ada, I suppose we'd just constant fold 1/0 into
839+
840+ die "Illegal division by zero"
841+ -- Larry Wall in <199711100226.SAA12549@wall.org>
842+%
843+Are you perchance running on a 64-bit machine?
844+ -- Larry Wall in <199711102149.NAA16878@wall.org>
845+%
846+Almost nothing in Perl serves a single purpose.
847+ -- Larry Wall in <199712040054.QAA13811@wall.org>
848+%
849+There's some entertainment value in watching people juggle nitroglycerin.
850+ -- Larry Wall in <199712041747.JAA18908@wall.org>
851+%
852+Reserve your abuse for your true friends.
853+ -- Larry Wall in <199712041852.KAA19364@wall.org>
854+%
855+Er, Tom, I hate to be the one to point this out, but your fix list
856+is starting to resemble a feature list. You must be human or something.
857+ -- Larry Wall in <199801081824.KAA29602@wall.org>
858+%
859+It's hard to tune heavily tuned code. :-)
860+ -- Larry Wall in <199801141725.JAA07555@wall.org>
861+%
862+Perl will always provide the null.
863+ -- Larry Wall in <199801151818.KAA14538@wall.org>
864+%
865+It's easy to solve the halting problem with a shotgun. :-)
866+ -- Larry Wall in <199801151836.KAA14656@wall.org>
867+%
868+Well, I think Perl should run faster than C. :-)
869+ -- Larry Wall in <199801200306.TAA11638@wall.org>
870+%
871+To Perl, or not to Perl, that is the kvetching.
872+ -- Larry Wall in <199801200310.TAA11670@wall.org>
873+%
874+I suppose you could switch grammars once you've seen "use strict subs". :-)
875+ -- Larry Wall in <199804140117.SAA02006@wall.org>
876+%
877+Well, you know, Hubbard had a bunch of people sworn to commit suicide
878+when he died. So of course he never officially died...
879+ -- Larry Wall in <199804141540.IAA05247@wall.org>
880+%
881+Even the White House has a press agent. :-)
882+ -- Larry Wall in <199804150048.RAA08083@wall.org>
883+%
884+That's a valid argument. I just don't think it's valid enough. :-)
885+ -- Larry Wall in <199804150050.RAA08093@wall.org>
886+%
887+Perl should remain fast and intuitive (to the extent that it is :-)
888+ -- Larry Wall in <199804151704.KAA12290@wall.org>
889+%
890+I would estimate that the number of programs it breaks in the world
891+will be less than 10. As long as one of those 10 isn't CGI.pm, we're
892+probably okay.
893+ -- Larry Wall in <199804161805.LAA18882@wall.org>
894+%
895+Just put in another goto, and then it'll be readable. :-)
896+ -- Larry Wall in <199804161810.LAA18902@wall.org>
897+%
898+Doing linear scans over an associative array is like trying to club
899+someone to death with a loaded Uzi.
900+ -- Larry Wall
901+%
902+I'm reminded of the day my daughter came in, looked over my shoulder at
903+some Perl 4 code, and said, "What is that, swearing?"
904+ -- Larry Wall in <199806181642.JAA10629@wall.org>
905+%
906+Y'know, there are other possibilities if we assume that filenames
907+are UTF-8...yikes...wait, put down that meat cleaver! Aieeee!!!
908+ -- Larry Wall in <199806181655.JAA10702@wall.org>
909+%
910+ print rand rand rand 1, "\n"; # interesting distribution
911+ -- Larry Wall in <199806191536.IAA19013@wall.org>
912+%
913+: I could understand principles of Perl source in 2-3 days [. . .]
914+
915+Gee, it took me about eleven years. :-)
916+ -- Larry Wall in <199806200201.TAA22277@wall.org>
917+%
918+There's often more than one correct thing.
919+There's often more than one right thing.
920+There's often more than one obvious thing.
921+ -- Larry Wall in <199806201726.KAA26569@wall.org>
922+%
923+I don't believe I've ever cuddled my elses.
924+ -- Larry Wall in <199806221550.IAA07171@wall.org>
925+%
926+I've always maintained a cordial dislike for indent, because it's usually
927+right.
928+ -- Larry Wall in <199806221558.IAA07251@wall.org>
929+%
930+I'd make people say 'use Fork;' if I thought I could get away with it.
931+ -- Larry Wall in <199806232054.NAA01735@wall.org>
932+%
933+The way I see it, if you declare something portable, you'll always be
934+wrong, and if you declare it non-portable, you'll always be right. :-)
935+ -- Larry Wall in <199806232215.PAA02356@wall.org>
936+%
937+Perhaps you should compile your Perl with long doubles one of these
938+megaseconds.
939+ -- Larry Wall in <199806241734.KAA09652@wall.org>
940+%
941+But we can both blame it all on Henry.
942+ -- Larry Wall on perl's regex engine
943+%
944+: Why Bible quotes exclusively? What happened to the Eastern religions?
945+
946+I'm still working on the Unicode mods.
947+ -- Larry Wall in <199807021924.MAA05380@wall.org>
948+%
949+Maybe we should take a clue from FTP and put in an option like "print
950+hash marks on every 1024 iterations". :-)
951+ -- Larry Wall in <199807171819.LAA13771@wall.org>
952+%
953+And besides, if Perl really takes off in the Windows space, I think the
954+rest of us would just as soon have a double-agent within ActiveState. :-)
955+ -- Larry Wall in <199807172334.QAA18255@wall.org>
956+%
957+The court finds everyone to be in contempt (including himself :-), and
958+orders everyone sentenced to five years hard labor. (Working on Perl,
959+of course.)
960+ -- Larry Wall in <199807211548.IAA26184@wall.org>
961+%
962+I note that the Python folks still think they like JPython. I wonder
963+how long that will last?
964+ -- Larry Wall in <199808050009.RAA22631@wall.org>
965+%
966+I view the JVM as just another architecture that Perl ought to be ported to.
967+(That, and the Underwood typewriter...)
968+ -- Larry Wall in <199808050415.VAA24026@wall.org>
969+%
970+So please don't think I have a "down" on the MVS people. I'm just pulling
971+off their arms to beat other people over the head with.
972+ -- Larry Wall in <199808050415.VAA24026@wall.org>
973+%
974+It's, uh, pseudo code. Yeah, that's the ticket...
975+[...]
976+And "unicode" is pseudo code for $encoding. :-)
977+ -- Larry Wall in <199808071717.KAA12628@wall.org>
978+%
979+: What do people think?
980+What, do people think? :-)
981+ -- Larry Wall in <199808071736.KAA12738@wall.org>
982+%
983+Well, sure, I explicitly mentioned "vtables" last time I brought this
984+up. But a single pointer is fairly paltry, as tables go. :-)
985+ -- Larry Wall in <199808170117.SAA19369@wall.org>
986+%
987+I dunno. Perhaps you should be happy that I have a policy of refraining
988+from grumbling about handicapped operating systems. :-)
989+ -- Larry Wall in <199808291719.KAA12244@wall.org>
990+%
991+Perl did not get where it is by ignoring psychological factors.
992+ -- Larry Wall in <199809031634.JAA26895@wall.org>
993+%
994+On the plus side, it's a lot easier in general to find /usr/include than cpp.
995+ -- Larry Wall in <199809041612.JAA05556@wall.org>
996+%
997+Psychotics are consistently inconsistent. The essence of sanity is
998+to be inconsistently inconsistent.
999+ -- Larry Wall in <199809041918.MAA06850@wall.org>
1000+%
1001+That which hits the fan tends to get flung in all directions.
1002+ -- Larry Wall in <199809091801.LAA15194@wall.org>
1003+%
1004+If this were Ada, we'd simply doc it as "erroneous".
1005+ -- Larry Wall in <199809111734.KAA28296@wall.org>
1006+%
1007+So I'm thinking about ??, or !!, or //, or \\, or whatever. But I
1008+think I like ?? the best so far. Or the least worst.
1009+ -- Larry Wall in <199809150037.RAA17580@wall.org>
1010+%
1011+One operator is no big deal. That can be fixed in a jiffy.
1012+ -- Larry Wall in <199809151814.LAA22396@wall.org>
1013+%
1014+In Clintonese, that would be "You are free to infer that I was saying
1015+that." :-)
1016+ -- Larry Wall in <199809222305.QAA17574@wall.org>
1017+%
1018+Would you trust the linguistic intuitions of someone who has been
1019+studying Latin or Greek for three days?
1020+ -- Larry Wall in <199809230518.WAA19312@wall.org>
1021+%
1022+But I know what's important to me, and what isn't. And I think I know what
1023+people can get used to, and what they can even learn to like. (It just takes
1024+some people longer than others. :-)
1025+ -- Larry Wall in <199809230518.WAA19312@wall.org>
1026+%
1027+My arthritic pinkies are already starting to ache just thinking about ||||=.
1028+ -- Larry Wall in <199809251659.JAA06689@wall.org>
1029+%
1030+Orthogonality for orthogonality's sake is not something I'm keen on.
1031+ -- Larry Wall in <199809260112.SAA17178@wall.org>
1032+%
1033+Hmm, doubtful. The source code generally wasn't there when I needed it.
1034+ -- Larry Wall when asked if he learned Perl from the perl source
1035+%
1036+Must be a different Larry Wall. There are at least 137 of us in the U.S.
1037+ -- Larry Wall in <199809300035.RAA12495@wall.org>
1038+%
1039+Symmetry is overrated. Overrated is symmetry.
1040+ -- Larry Wall in <6vhq4r$a6i@kiev.wall.org>
1041+%
1042+That is a known bug in 5.00550. Either an upgrade or a downgrade will
1043+fix it.
1044+ -- Larry Wall in <6vu1vo$89c@kiev.wall.org>
1045+%
1046+That being said, I think we should immediately deprecate any string
1047+concatenation that combines "19" with "99". :-)
1048+ -- Larry Wall in <199811242002.MAA26850@wall.org>
1049+%
1050+The Golden Gate wasn't our fault either, but we still put a bridge across it.
1051+ -- Larry Wall in <199811242253.OAA28167@wall.org>
1052+%
1053+It should be illegal to yell "Y2K" in a crowded economy. :-)
1054+ -- Larry Wall in <199811242326.PAA28495@wall.org>
1055+%
1056+One thing I do understand is that people get scared when I start
1057+thinking out loud. :-)
1058+ -- Larry Wall in <20031212010945.GB29594@wall.org>
1059+%
1060+: No comment, since this is still hovering (see Larry's reply).
1061+
1062+Flutter, flutter.
1063+ -- Larry Wall in <20031213005325.GE7605@wall.org>
1064+%
1065+We don't have enough parallel universes to allow all uses of all
1066+junction types--in the absence of quantum computing the combinatorics
1067+are not in our favor...
1068+ -- Larry Wall in <20031213210102.GE18685@wall.org>
1069+%
1070+Accidental stacks considered harmful.
1071+ -- Larry Wall in <20031213202246.GD18685@wall.org>
1072+%
1073+I try not to confuse roles and traits in my own life. Being the Perl
1074+god is a role. Being a stubborn cuss is a trait. :-)
1075+ -- Larry Wall in <20031215021442.GA4012@wall.org>
1076+%
1077+And in the limiting case where the optimizer is completely broken because
1078+it's not implemented yet, we get to work around that too. Optionally...
1079+ -- Larry Wall in <20031217195433.GB31020@wall.org>
1080+%
1081+I think I'm happier with that. $rubyometer += 0.3 or so. :-)
1082+ -- Larry Wall in <20031219184224.GA19865@wall.org>
1083+%
1084+Then people who believe only in Interfaces can use the same
1085+underlying system-defined Roles without compromising their
1086+Java-bedeviled value system. :-)
1087+ -- Larry Wall in <20040217163036.GA30527@wall.org>
1088+%
1089+Well, some of that relates to the fact that last year I basically
1090+had to take half a year off to participate in various non-optional
1091+gastric revisions.
1092+ -- Larry Wall in <20040226192647.GA11151@wall.org>
1093+%
1094+Execute! (I hope that's the right word...)
1095+ -- Larry Wall in <20040302065954.GA12495@wall.org>
1096+%
1097+Yes, I'm a megalomaniac to think that I can set a better standard than
1098+the French... :-)
1099+ -- Larry Wall in <20040303205940.GA24064@wall.org>
1100+%
1101+"Best effort" is one of those phrases that doesn't mean what it means...
1102+ -- Larry Wall in <20040316024220.GB3367@wall.org>
1103+%
1104+I recommend not remaking my mistakes. Please make different mistakes. :-)
1105+ -- Larry Wall in <20040317192052.GA10645@wall.org>
1106+%
1107+Biologist: What's worse than being chased by a Velociraptor?
1108+Physicist: Obviously, being chased by an Acceloraptor.
1109+ -- Larry Wall in A12
1110+%
1111+Python's syntax succeeds in combining the mistakes of Lisp and Fortran.
1112+I do not contrue that as progress.
1113+ -- Larry Wall in <20040512161005.GB3902@wall.org>
1114+%
1115+Backtracking is a wonderful concept till you have to do it.
1116+ -- Larry Wall in <20040624192459.GE24759@wall.org>
1117+%
1118+But let me put this on the record: I specifically disrecommend use of
1119+grammar tweaks that will incite lynch mobs. You have been warned. :-)
1120+ -- Larry Wall in <20040709193138.GA21997@wall.org>
1121+%
1122+You might as well write your warning in Russian for all the good
1123+it'll do. :-)
1124+ -- Larry Wall in <20040710010945.GC32394@wall.org>
1125+%
1126+: I'm about to learn myself perl6 (after using perl5 for some time).
1127+
1128+I'm also trying to learn perl6 after using perl5 for some time. :-)
1129+ -- Larry Wall in <20040709202041.GA23451@wall.org>
1130+%
1131+I suppose that :byte could also take an argument to force a particular
1132+old-style (single-byte) locale, if we choose to support them, and are
1133+willing to take the consequences of Jarkko going postal. :-)
1134+ -- Larry Wall in <20040712184548.GA19937@wall.org>
1135+%
1136+One error message that would be of great benefit to novices is if we
1137+could guess where the missing brace is based on indentation. (But not
1138+*assuming* the missing brace, of course--this isn't Python... :-)
1139+ -- Larry Wall in <20040714172318.GA21069@wall.org>
1140+%
1141+Just don't anyone suggest that we indicate what's modified *syntactically*
1142+by placing the adverb directly under it... Yow. Two-dimensional programs.
1143+Reminds me of BF... Maybe we should just pass this suggestion on to
1144+Guido... :-) -- Larry Wall in <20040714181005.GB23830@wall.org>
1145+%
1146+Two-dimensional parsing is fun...
1147+ -- Larry Wall in <20040721231814.GA30798@wall.org>
1148+%
1149+It'd be really nice to find a way to explain continuations to people
1150+without inflicting the typical torturous explanations on people who
1151+aren't interested in brain pretzels.
1152+ -- Larry Wall
1153+%
1154+People can't see the ferment in my mind. What they see externally has to be
1155+filtered through my verbal apparatus, which is actually quite limited. I
1156+often think that my verbal processor is a slow interpreter. My wife's verbal
1157+processor is a fast compiler. -- Larry Wall, 8th State of the Onion
1158+%
1159+I don't have ADHD. I tend to perseverate and not get distracted when I
1160+should get distracted . . . My good friend Tom Christiansen, who does have
1161+ADHD, once said jokingly that I have "task-switching deficit" disorder.
1162+ -- Larry Wall, 8th State of the Onion
1163+%
1164+Anyway, please don't anyone take offense at my free associations. Even
1165+if they're true.
1166+ -- Larry Wall, 8th State of the Onion
1167+%
1168+You know how people are sometimes rude on Usenet or on a mailing list.
1169+Sometimes they'll write something that can only be taken as a deadly insult,
1170+and then they have the unmitigated gall to put a smiley face on it, as if
1171+that makes it all right. -- Larry Wall, 8th State of the Onion
1172+%
1173+Personally, Rorschach blots always look like butterflies to me. Or
1174+pelvis bones, I admit it.
1175+ -- Larry Wall, 8th State of the Onion
1176+%
1177+Another way to look at it is that screensavers are sort of a poor man's
1178+LSD, without the bad trips.
1179+ -- Larry Wall, 8th State of the Onion
1180+%
1181+I had really weird dreams on morphine [after having a tumor removed].
1182+Didn't like those screensavers. But a wonderful poem came to me -- it
1183+started out "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree."
1184+But I can't remember the rest of it. -- Larry Wall, 8th State of the Onion
1185+%
1186+Maybe I'm a little bit crazy, but I can't decide if it's psychotic or
1187+neurotic. You know the difference, don't you? A psychotic thinks that
1188+2 + 2 = 5. A neurotic knows that 2 + 2 = 4, but it makes him nervous.
1189+ -- Larry Wall, 8th State of the Onion
1190+%
1191+The interesting thing was that while I was watching, they forked. You know,
1192+like BSD. One group of cuttlefish went off one way, and the other group went
1193+off another. Maybe they had a personality conflict. Maybe they had a fight
1194+over licensing. I dunno. -- Larry Wall, 8th State of the Onion
1195+%
1196+Are you going to bother to set up an unspoofable identity for every
1197+shirt in your closet?
1198+ -- Larry Wall, 8th State of the Onion
1199+%
1200+In any event, the real geeks will probably just have the screen
1201+tattooed on their chest. Or their stomachs. Teletubbies "R" us.
1202+ -- Larry Wall, 8th State of the Onion
1203+%
1204+We're a hospital of people helping each other, performing random acts
1205+of beauty for each other, even when no one is watching but God.
1206+ -- Larry Wall, 8th State of the Onion
1207+%
1208+These days I may be missing the bottom of my stomach, but I still have
1209+the bottom of my heart. So I would like to thank you from the bottom of
1210+my heart for being precisely who you are.
1211+ -- Larry Wall, 8th State of the Onion
1212+%
1213+The problem with a thesaurus is that it only gives you synonyms, not the
1214+word you really want. :-)
1215+ -- Larry Wall in <20041204185741.GA16358@wall.org>
1216+%
1217+It's kinda funny to watch the Parrot folks reinventing a similar scheme.
1218+(Er, no pun intended. Really!)
1219+ -- Larry Wall in <20041204193310.GC16358@wall.org>
1220+%
1221+ ...a Lazy has to be aware of when it is out of values, and when it should
1222+call into some meta-Lazy for more iterator values. And I suppose that
1223+meta-Lazy could in turn have a meta-meta-Lazy, which could have a
1224+meta-meta-meta-Lazy, and now my brane hurts. -- Larry Wall
1225+%
1226+Appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, I'm not trying to break
1227+Perl 5 constructs just for the heck of it.
1228+ -- Larry Wall in <20041206220054.GA10212@wall.org>
1229+%
1230+Well, hey, we'll have to leave some of the programming up to you. :-)
1231+ -- Larry Wall in <20050212184643.GA20059@wall.org>
1232+%
1233+Personally I'm looking forward to seeing what the .mathematica method
1234+spits out for a junction, but maybe I'll have to settle for a .apl
1235+method instead.
1236+ -- Larry Wall in <20050216071655.GC3909@wall.org>
1237+%
1238+It is my persistent belief (and fond hope) that theory and practice
1239+don't always have to pull in opposite directions.
1240+ -- Larry Wall in <20050216183411.GA24492@wall.org>
1241+%
1242+The human psyche is a mishmash of rules of thumb, and Einstein's thumb
1243+is only two of them.
1244+ -- Larry Wall in <20050217173835.GB26246@wall.org>
1245+%
1246+My assertion that we can do better with computer languages is a
1247+persistent belief and fond hope, but you'll note I don't actually
1248+claim to be either rational or right. Except when it's convenient. :-)
1249+ -- Larry Wall in <20050217173835.GB26246@wall.org>
1250+%
1251+How long before someone writes $x.ugly('Python'), I wonder...
1252+ -- Larry Wall in <20050217181027.GD26246@wall.org>
1253+%
1254+Bare S-expressions won't work in standard Perl, of course, unless you
1255+make "(foo" parse like some kind of reserved word for a known set of
1256+"foo". I'm sure if you did that someone would consider it perverse.
1257+ -- Larry Wall in <20050221193216.GE409@wall.org>
1258+%
1259+The semantics of alcohol don't change when you reach drinking age.
1260+Only the pragmatics change.
1261+ -- Larry Wall in <20050221191846.GD409@wall.org>
1262+%
1263+I think so--a pair can always pretend to be a very small hash.
1264+ -- Larry Wall in <20050221175223.GA409@wall.org>
1265+%
1266+ ...sometimes collections of stupid utterances can be rather clever. If
1267+my writings are ever published posthumously, they should probably be
1268+called "A Collection of Stupid Utterances", or some such... :-)
1269+ -- Larry Wall in <20050303163144.GA5235@wall.org>
1270+%
1271+But at some point you just give up and call it cheating, er,
1272+I mean, AOP. :-)
1273+ -- Larry Wall in <20050307173849.GA16558@wall.org>
1274+%
1275+I'm not consistent about consistency, you see, except when I am...
1276+And I try to believe six foolish consistencies before breakfast each day. :-)
1277+ -- Larry Wall in <20050307164019.GA14585@wall.org>
1278+%
1279+Uh, yeah. Obviously, 11 pm is still to early in the day for me...
1280+ -- Larry Wall in <20050308071002.GA1069@wall.org>
1281+%
1282+I have no opinion on its suitability for any particular task. I'm just
1283+the language designer--my job is to shoot you in the foot and make you
1284+think you did it to yourself. :-)
1285+ -- Larry Wall in <20050309170804.GA22973@wall.org>
1286+%
1287+That's...sick... I love it. *Please* don't tell Damian.
1288+ -- Larry Wall in <20050309180300.GF22973@wall.org>
1289+%
1290+Sex is fun, but it probably doesn't solve all your problems.
1291+ -- Larry Wall in <20050309192903.GA27250@wall.org>
1292+%
1293+You have the irritating habit of asking good questions I don't have
1294+an easy answer for. Please don't stop.
1295+ -- Larry Wall in <20050314165932.GA12577@wall.org>
1296+%
1297+But maybe we could try to set some slushiness milestones on the road to
1298+hell freezing over...
1299+ -- Larry Wall in <20050314165932.GA12577@wall.org>
1300+%
1301+Oh, right--I'd better learn to read Perl 6 one of these days. :-)
1302+ -- Larry Wall in <20050316201700.GB31121@wall.org>
1303+%
1304+That's what Sleepy Brain says. But Coffee Brain despises Sleepy Brain. :-)
1305+ -- Larry Wall in <20050317164126.GA28021@wall.org>
1306+%
1307+fail("Language designer not persuaded"); # :-)
1308+ -- Larry Wall in <20050327054109.GC25664@wall.org>
1309+%
1310+If I thought that I could design a language that will never disappoint
1311+anyone, I'd be a lot stupider than I already think I am, I think.
1312+ -- Larry Wall in <20050328202308.GA21733@wall.org>
1313+%
1314+And you can still put in all that cruft if you want to. You can even
1315+force yourself to have to do it. But to me, it feels a bit like slavery,
1316+so I'm still looking for a land flowing with milk and honey, even if
1317+there are a few giants in it. -- Larry Wall
1318+%
1319+As long as "we" includes "you", that's fine by "me". :-)
1320+ -- Larry Wall in <20050330171201.GA22184@wall.org>
1321+%
1322+Clear conceptual splits often hide false dichotomies.
1323+ -- Larry Wall in <20050330195322.GB22184@wall.org>
1324+%
1325+Birds naturally prefer early binding to late binding; worms will
1326+naturally disagree. Rolling stones gather no type constraints.
1327+ -- Larry Wall in <20050330195322.GB22184@wall.org>
1328+%
1329+Hmm, where there's a way, there's a will, I guess.
1330+ -- Larry Wall in <20050413040733.GA5986@wall.org>
1331+%
1332+It's not designed to make people happy who want to confuse those
1333+issues. We have macros for that.
1334+ -- Larry Wall in <20050419155213.GC19507@wall.org>
1335+%
1336+Is that enough muddy thinking for one morning?
1337+ -- Larry Wall in <20050419155213.GC19507@wall.org>
1338+%
1339+It seems like a sane thing to me, but that's a rather low standard.
1340+ -- Larry Wall in <20050419150023.GA19507@wall.org>
1341+%
1342+: I hope I never have to design my own language. I would be schizophrenic
1343+: before the day ends.
1344+That's backwards. You have to be schizophrenic before the day starts.
1345+ -- Larry Wall in <20050419150023.GA19507@wall.org>
1346+%
1347+Hmm. What would it mean to goto a class?
1348+ -- Larry Wall in <20050420185445.GC766@wall.org>
1349+%
1350+In any event (no pun intended), I've always wondered how it is you
1351+can "kill" a process with a SIGCONT. As long as we're fixing everything
1352+else, maybe we can fix Unix too. :-)
1353+ -- Larry Wall in <20050420171135.GD29671@wall.org>
1354+%
1355+Or I suppose we could always recontextualize the meaning of "is"
1356+instead. There is prior art...
1357+ -- Larry Wall in <20050420192727.GF766@wall.org>
1358+%
1359+Dude, nowadays we're trying to make Perl 6 more Unicode aware, not
1360+less; /usr/share/dict/words is so, like, monocultural, and stuff.
1361+ -- Larry Wall in <20050420194147.GH766@wall.org>
1362+%
1363+Anything is *possible* in PUGS. :-)
1364+ -- Larry Wall in <20050420205201.GD3971@wall.org>
1365+%
1366+sub eval_C ($proggie) { CGrammar.top($proggie).compile.link.run.dump.gdb }
1367+ -- Larry Wall in <20050420220706.GA6265@wall.org>
1368+%
1369+It might do what you mean. Personally, I would never mean that if I
1370+could help it. :-)
1371+ -- Larry Wall in <20050421225012.GA12790@wall.org>
1372+%
1373+But I'm sure some will argue that's too subtle. (Hi, @Larry<Damian>.)
1374+ -- Larry Wall in <20050423013102.GA21941@wall.org>
1375+%
1376+We're still discussing it on @Larry, but I think we can make that work.
1377+ -- Larry Wall in <20050503004247.GA7342@wall.org>
1378+%
1379+Yes, it's a slippery slope. No, we are not sliding all the way down
1380+it. And it's just as easy to slide up this slope as well as down, and
1381+end up with Lisp rather than APL. Neither extreme is healthy.
1382+ -- Larry Wall in <20050504165510.GB7407@wall.org>
1383+%
1384+Almost nothing in the design of Perl 6 is there for a single purpose.
1385+ -- Larry Wall in <20050504165510.GB7407@wall.org>
1386+%
1387+I think a p6explain would be a rather popular program.
1388+ -- Larry Wall in <20050505050259.GA25468@wall.org>
1389+%
1390+Every day it gets a little harder to distinguish my senility from
1391+my insanity...
1392+ -- Larry Wall in <20050507200008.GC27695@wall.org>
1393+%
1394+The compiler is not immutable; it is a means to an end.
1395+And the end I am imagining is one that I cannot imagine.
1396+ -- Larry Wall in <20050514164301.GA13727@wall.org>
1397+%
1398+There's more than one method to our madness.
1399+ -- Larry Wall in <20050614192549.GB17779@wall.org>
1400+%
1401+The stupid people are the ones proposing to outlaw stupidity. :-)
1402+ -- Larry Wall in <20050708031759.GB3727@wall.org>
1403+%
1404+Of course, if we make the MMD rules sufficiently complicated, we'll just have
1405+to make the warning spit out a spreadsheet to show the calculations. Then we
1406+hide all that behind an interview process, just like all our wonderful tax
1407+preparation software... -- Larry Wall in <20050708185704.GA12164@wall.org>
1408+%
1409+My suggestion would be to assume that the Apocalypses are primarily
1410+intended to be entertaining rather than factual. :-)
1411+ -- Larry Wall in <20050809221810.GA31369@wall.org>
1412+%
1413+Wheelbarrow is a scavenger. That is to say, he's a sysadmin.
1414+ -- Larry Wall in The State of the Onion 9
1415+%
A config/.local/fortune/larrywall/larrywall.dat
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