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Almost nothing in Perl serves a single purpose.

Larry Wall

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Larry Wall
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: September 27
Computer Scientist
Engineer
Linguist
Programmer
Writer
LA
California
TimToady
Larry Arnold Wall
Perl
Serves
Single
Almost
Purpose
Nothing

More quotes by Larry Wall

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You can’t change the past. You can’t even change the future, in the sense that you can only change the present one moment at a time, stubbornly, until the future unwinds itself into the stories of our lives.
Larry Wall
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Sometimes I wish I could put an expiration date on my quotes.
Larry Wall
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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
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I procrastinate, but mostly because there's always too many things to do, and I got the stew in my mind that things do bubble up, so I'll throw things in there and let them stew around. It's sort of like greasing the squeaky wheels in my own brain.
Larry Wall
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I want to see people using Perl to glue things together creatively, not just technically but also socially.
Larry Wall
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I'm reminded of the day my daughter came in, looked over my shoulder at some Perl 4 code, and said, 'What is that, swearing?
Larry Wall
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What you'll need most is courage. It is not an easy path that you've set your foot upon.
Larry Wall
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I wouldn't ever write the full sentence myself, but then, I never use goto either.
Larry Wall
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But I know what's important to me, and what isn't. And I think I know what people can get used to, and what they can even learn to like. (It just takes some people longer than others. :-)
Larry Wall
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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
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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
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Save it for my unauthorized autobiography.
Larry Wall
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In general, they do what you want, unless you want consistency.
Larry Wall
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I'd make people say 'use Fork' if I thought I could get away with it.
Larry Wall
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As pointed out in a followup, Real Perl Programmers prefer things to be visually distinct.
Larry Wall
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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
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Psychotics are consistently inconsistent. The essence of sanity is to be inconsistently inconsistent.
Larry Wall
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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
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Don't wear rollerskates to a tug-of-war.
Larry Wall
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If you want your program to be readable, consider supplying the argument.
Larry Wall