wall : Dictionary / Wörterbuch (BEOLINGUS, TU Chemnitz)

Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English)	by Linux fortune

A rose is a rose is a rose. Just ask Jean Marsh, known to millions of PBS viewers in the '70s as Rose, the maid on the LWT export "Upstairs, Downstairs." Though Marsh has since gone on to other projects, ... it's with Rose she's forever identified. So much so that she even likes to joke about having one named after her, a distinction not without its drawbacks. "I was very flattered when I heard about it, but when I looked up the official description, it said, `Jean Marsh: pale peach, not very good in beds; better up against a wall.' I want to tell you that's not true. I'm very good in beds as well."
I. Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of its situation. Daffy Duck steps off a cliff, expecting further pastureland. He loiters in midair, soliloquizing flippantly, until he chances to look down. At this point, the familiar principle of 32 feet per second per second takes over. II. Any body in motion will tend to remain in motion until solid matter intervenes suddenly. Whether shot from a cannon or in hot pursuit on foot, cartoon characters are so absolute in their momentum that only a telephone pole or an outsize boulder retards their forward motion absolutely. Sir Isaac Newton called this sudden termination of motion the stooge's surcease. III. Any body passing through solid matter will leave a perforation conforming to its perimeter. Also called the silhouette of passage, this phenomenon is the speciality of victims of directed-pressure explosions and of reckless cowards who are so eager to escape that they exit directly through the wall of a house, leaving a cookie-cutout-perfect hole. The threat of skunks or matrimony often catalyzes this reaction. -- Esquire, "O'Donnell's Laws of Cartoon Motion", June 1980
VII. Certain bodies can pass through solid walls painted to resemble tunnel entrances; others cannot. This trompe l'oeil inconsistency has baffled generations, but at least it is known that whoever paints an entrance on a wall's surface to trick an opponent will be unable to pursue him into this theoretical space. The painter is flattened against the wall when he attempts to follow into the painting. This is ultimately a problem of art, not of science. VIII. Any violent rearrangement of feline matter is impermanent. Cartoon cats possess even more deaths than the traditional nine lives might comfortably afford. They can be decimated, spliced, splayed, accordion-pleated, spindled, or disassembled, but they cannot be destroyed. After a few moments of blinking self pity, they reinflate, elongate, snap back, or solidify. IX. For every vengeance there is an equal and opposite revengeance. This is the one law of animated cartoon motion that also applies to the physical world at large. For that reason, we need the relief of watching it happen to a duck instead. X. Everything falls faster than an anvil. Examples too numerous to mention from the Roadrunner cartoons. -- Esquire, "O'Donnell's Laws of Cartoon Motion", June 1980
"All language designers are arrogant. Goes with the territory..." (By Larry Wall)
Plumber mistook routing panel for decorative wall fixture
For the fashion of Minas Tirith was such that it was built on seven levels, each delved into a hill, and about each was set a wall, and in each wall was a gate. -- J.R.R. Tolkien, "The Return of the King" [Quoted in "VMS Internals and Data Structures", V4.4, when referring to system overview.]
Although it is still a truism in industry that "no one was ever fired for buying IBM," Bill O'Neil, the chief technology officer at Drexel Burnham Lambert, says he knows for a fact that someone has been fired for just that reason. He knows it because he fired the guy. "He made a bad decision, and what it came down to was, 'Well, I bought it because I figured it was safe to buy IBM,'" Mr. O'Neil says. "I said, 'No. Wrong. Game over. Next contestant, please.'" -- The Wall Street Journal, December 6, 1989
Hacker's Guide To Cooking: 2 pkg. cream cheese (the mushy white stuff in silver wrappings that doesn't really come from Philadelphia after all; anyway, about 16 oz.) 1 tsp. vanilla extract (which is more alcohol than vanilla and pretty strong so this part you GOTTA measure) 1/4 cup sugar (but honey works fine too) 8 oz. Cool Whip (the fluffy stuff devoid of nutritional value that you can squirt all over your friends and lick off...) "Blend all together until creamy with no lumps." This is where you get to join(1) all the raw data in a big buffer and then filter it through merge(1m) with the -thick option, I mean, it starts out ultra lumpy and icky looking and you have to work hard to mix it. Try an electric beater if you have a cat(1) that can climb wall(1s) to lick it off the ceiling(3m). "Pour into a graham cracker crust..." Aha, the BUGS section at last. You just happened to have a GCC sitting around under /etc/food, right? If not, don't panic(8), merely crumble a rand(3m) handful of innocent GCs into a suitable tempfile and mix in some melted butter. "...and refrigerate for an hour." Leave the recipe's stdout in a fridge for 3.6E6 milliseconds while you work on cleaning up stderr, and by time out your cheesecake will be ready for stdin.
IBM Advanced Systems Group -- a bunch of mindless jerks, who'll be first against the wall when the revolution comes... -- with regrets to D. Adams
We all agree on the necessity of compromise. We just can't agree on when it's necessary to compromise. -- Larry Wall
"We invented a new protocol and called it Kermit, after Kermit the Frog, star of "The Muppet Show." [3] [3] Why? Mostly because there was a Muppets calendar on the wall when we were trying to think of a name, and Kermit is a pleasant, unassuming sort of character. But since we weren't sure whether it was OK to name our protocol after this popular television and movie star, we pretended that KERMIT was an acronym; unfortunately, we could never find a good set of words to go with the letters, as readers of some of our early source code can attest. Later, while looking through a name book for his forthcoming baby, Bill Catchings noticed that "Kermit" was a Celtic word for "free", which is what all Kermit programs should be, and words to this effect replaced the strained acronyms in our source code (Bill's baby turned out to be a girl, so he had to name her Becky instead). When BYTE Magazine was preparing our 1984 Kermit article for publication, they suggested we contact Henson Associates Inc. for permission to say that we did indeed name the protocol after Kermit the Frog. Permission was kindly granted, and now the real story can be told. I resisted the temptation, however, to call the present work "Kermit the Book." -- Frank da Cruz, "Kermit - A File Transfer Protocol"
It is your concern when your neighbor's wall is on fire. -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace)
But Rabshakeh said unto them, Hath my master sent me to thy master, and to thee, to speak these words? Hath he not sent me to the men which sit on the wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their own piss with you? [2 Kings 18:27 (KJV)]
Operating-system software is the program that orchestrates all the basic functions of a computer. - The Wall Street Journal, Tuesday, September 15, 1987, page 40
Fiery energy lanced out, but the beams struck an intangible wall between the Gubru and the rapidly turning Earth ship. "Water!" it shrieked as it read the spectral report. "A barrier of water vapor! A civilized race could not have found such a trick in the Library! A civilized race could not have stooped so low! A civilized race would not have..." It screamed as the Gubru ship hit a cloud of drifting snowflakes. - Startide Rising, by David Brin
Could be you're crossing the fine line A silly driver kind of...off the wall You keep it cool when it's t-t-tight ...eyes wide open when you start to fall. - The Cars
"For the love of phlegm...a stupid wall of death rays. How tacky can ya get?" - Post Brothers comics
"Remember Kruschev: he tried to do too many things too fast, and he was removed in disgrace. If Gorbachev tries to destroy the system or make too many fundamental changes to it, I believe the system will get rid of him. I am not a political scientist, but I understand the system very well. I believe he will have a "heart attack" or retire or be removed. He is up against a brick wall. If you think they will change everything and become a free, open society, forget it!" -- Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976 "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 110
"If you want the best things to happen in corporate life you have to find ways to be hospitable to the unusual person. You don't get innovation as a democratic process. You almost get it as an anti-democratic process. Certainly you get it as an anthitetical process, so you have to have an environment where the body of people are really amenable to change and can deal with the conflicts that arise out of change an innovation." -- Max DePree, chairman and CEO of Herman Miller Inc., "Herman Miller's Secrets of Corporate Creativity", The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1988
"In corporate life, I think there are three important areas which contracts can't deal with, the area of conflict, the area of change and area of reaching potential. To me a covenant is a relationship that is based on such things as shared ideals and shared value systems and shared ideas and shared agreement as to the processes we are going to use for working together. In many cases they develop into real love relationships." -- Max DePree, chairman and CEO of Herman Miller Inc., "Herman Miller's Secrets of Corporate Creativity", The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1988
Another goal is to establish a relationship "in which it is OK for everybody to do their best. There are an awful lot of people in management who really don't want subordinates to do their best, because it gets to be very threatening. But we have found that both internally and with outside designers if we are willing to have this kind of relationship and if we're willing to be vulnerable to what will come out of it, we get really good work." -- Max DePree, chairman and CEO of Herman Miller Inc., "Herman Miller's Secrets of Corporate Creativity", The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1988
In his book, Mr. DePree tells the story of how designer George Nelson urged that the company also take on Charles Eames in the late 1940s. Max's father, J. DePree, co-founder of the company with herman Miller in 1923, asked Mr. Nelson if he really wanted to share the limited opportunities of a then-small company with another designer. "George's response was something like this: 'Charles Eames is an unusual talent. He is very different from me. The company needs us both. I want very much to have Charles Eames share in whatever potential there is.'" -- Max DePree, chairman and CEO of Herman Miller Inc., "Herman Miller's Secrets of Corporate Creativity", The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1988
Mr. DePree believes participative capitalism is the wave of the future. The U.S. work force, he believes, "more and more demands to be included in the capitalist system and if we don't find ways to get the capitalist system to be an inclusive system rather than the exclusive system it has been, we're all in deep trouble. If we don't find ways to begin to understand that capitalism's highest potential lies in the common good, not in the individual good, then we're risking the system itself." -- Max DePree, chairman and CEO of Herman Miller Inc., "Herman Miller's Secrets of Corporate Creativity", The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1988
Mr. DePree also expects a "tremendous social change" in all workplaces. "When I first started working 40 years ago, a factory supervisor was focused on the product. Today it is drastically different, because of the social milieu. It isn't unusual for a worker to arrive on his shift and have some family problem that he doesn't know how to resolve. The example I like to use is a guy who comes in and says 'this isn't going to be a good day for me, my son is in jail on a drunk-driving charge and I don't know how to raise bail.' What that means is that if the supervisor wants productivity, he has to know how to raise bail." -- Max DePree, chairman and CEO of Herman Miller Inc., "Herman Miller's Secrets of Corporate Creativity", The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1988
"An entire fraternity of strapping Wall-Street-bound youth. Hell - this is going to be a blood bath!" -- Post Bros. Comics
I bought the latest computer; it came fully loaded. It was guaranteed for 90 days, but in 30 was outmoded! - The Wall Street Journal passed along by Big Red Computer's SCARLETT
Everyone who comes in here wants three things: 1. They want it quick. 2. They want it good. 3. They want it cheap. I tell 'em to pick two and call me back. -- sign on the back wall of a small printing company in Delaware
The Worst Prison Guards The largest number of convicts ever to escape simultaneously from a maximum security prison is 124. This record is held by Alcoente Prison, near Lisbon in Portugal. During the weeks leading up to the escape in July 1978 the prison warders had noticed that attendances had fallen at film shows which included "The Great Escape", and also that 220 knives and a huge quantity of electric cable had disappeared. A guard explained, "Yes, we were planning to look for them, but never got around to it." The warders had not, however, noticed the gaping holes in the wall because they were "covered with posters". Nor did they detect any of the spades, chisels, water hoses and electric drills amassed by the inmates in large quantities. The night before the breakout one guard had noticed that of the 36 prisoners in his block only 13 were present. He said this was "normal" because inmates sometimes missed roll-call or hid, but usually came back the next morning. "We only found out about the escape at 6:30 the next morning when one of the prisoners told us," a warder said later. [...] When they eventually checked, the prison guards found that exactly half of the gaol's population was missing. By way of explanation the Justice Minister, Dr. Santos Pais, claimed that the escape was "normal" and part of the "legitimate desire of the prisoner to regain his liberty." -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
There is Jackson standing like a stone wall. Let us determine to die, and we will conquer. Follow me. -- General Barnard E. Bee (CSA)
blithwapping: Using anything BUT a hammer to hammer a nail into the wall, such as shoes, lamp bases, doorstops, etc. -- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends
program, n.: A magic spell cast over a computer allowing it to turn one's input into error messages. tr.v. To engage in a pastime similar to banging one's head against a wall, but with fewer opportunities for reward.
QOTD: "Say, you look pretty athletic. What say we put a pair of tennis shoes on you and run you into the wall?"
The Abrams' Principle: The shortest distance between two points is off the wall.
Veal-Fattening Pen: Small, cramped office workstations built of fabric-covered disassemblable wall partitions and inhabited by junior staff members. Named after the small preslaughter cubicles used by the cattle industry. -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture"
Symptom: Floor swaying. Fault: Excessive air turbulence, perhaps due to air-hockey game in progress. Action Required: Insert broom handle down back of jacket. Symptom: Everything has gone dim, strange taste of peanuts and pretzels or cigarette butts in mouth. Fault: You have fallen forward. Action Required: See above. Symptom: Opposite wall covered with acoustic tile and several flourescent light strips. Fault: You have fallen over backward. Action Required: If your glass is full and no one is standing on your drinking arm, stay put. If not, get someone to help you get up, lash yourself to bar. -- Bar Troubleshooting
An American scientist once visited the offices of the great Nobel prize winning physicist, Niels Bohr, in Copenhagen. He was amazed to find that over Bohr's desk was a horseshoe, securely nailed to the wall, with the open end up in the approved manner (so it would catch the good luck and not let it spill out). The American said with a nervous laugh, "Surely you don't believe the horseshoe will bring you good luck, do you, Professor Bohr? After all, as a scientist --" Bohr chuckled. "I believe no such thing, my good friend. Not at all. I am scarcely likely to believe in such foolish nonsense. However, I am told that a horseshoe will bring you good luck whether you believe in it or not."
The Encyclopaedia Galactica defines a robot as a mechanical apparatus designed to do the work of a man. The marketing division of Sirius Cybernetics Corporation defines a robot as 'Your Plastic Pal Who's Fun To Be With'. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy defines the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as 'a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes', with a footnote to effect that the editors would welcome applications from anyone interested in taking over the post of robotics correspondent. Curiously enough, an edition of the Encyclopaedia Galactica that had the good fortune to fall through a time warp from a thousand years in the future defined the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as 'a bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the wall when the revolution came'. -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
There was a mad scientist (a mad... social... scientist) who kidnapped three colleagues, an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician, and locked each of them in seperate cells with plenty of canned food and water but no can opener. A month later, returning, the mad scientist went to the engineer's cell and found it long empty. The engineer had constructed a can opener from pocket trash, used aluminum shavings and dried sugar to make an explosive, and escaped. The physicist had worked out the angle necessary to knock the lids off the tin cans by throwing them against the wall. She was developing a good pitching arm and a new quantum theory. The mathematician had stacked the unopened cans into a surprising solution to the kissing problem; his dessicated corpse was propped calmly against a wall, and this was inscribed on the floor: Theorem: If I can't open these cans, I'll die. Proof: assume the opposite...
Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall, Aleph-null bottles of beer, You take one down, and pass it around, Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall.
Declared guilty... of displaying feelings of an almost human nature. -- Pink Floyd, "The Wall"
Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall! All the king's horses, And all the king's men, Had scrambled eggs for breakfast again!
I don't need no arms around me... I don't need no drugs to calm me... I have seen the writing on the wall. Don't think I need anything at all. No! Don't think I need anything at all! All in all, it was all just bricks in the wall. All in all, it was all just bricks in the wall. -- Pink Floyd, "Another Brick in the Wall", Part III
In the dimestores and bus stations People talk of situations Read books repeat quotations Draw conclusions on the wall. -- Bob Dylan
Good day for a change of scene. Repaper the bedroom wall.
When he got in trouble in the ring, [Ali] imagined a door swung open and inside he could see neon, orange, and green lights blinking, and bats blowing trumpets and alligators blowing trombones, and he could hear snakes screaming. Weird masks and actors' clothes hung on the wall, and if he stepped across the sill and reached for them, he knew that he was committing himself to destruction. -- George Plimpton
"Many have seen Topaxci, God of the Red Mushroom, and they earn the name of shaman," he said. Some have seen Skelde, spirit of the smoke, and they are called sorcerers. A few have been privileged to see Umcherrel, the soul of the forest, and they are known as spirit masters. But none have seen a box with hundreds of legs that looked at them without eyes, and they are known as idio--" The interruption was caused by a sudden screaming noise and a flurry of snow and sparks that blew the fire across the dark hut; there was a brief blurred vision and then the opposite wall was blasted aside and the apparition vanished. There was a long silence. Then a slightly shorter silence. Then the old shaman said carefully, "You didn't just see two men go through upside down on a broomstick, shouting and screaming at each other, did you?" The boy looked at him levelly. "Certainly not," he said. The old man heaved a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness for that," he said. "Neither did I." -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic"
"So here's a picture of reality: (picture of circle with lots of sqiggles in it) As we all know, reality is a mess." -- Larry Wall (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates)
"However, complexity is not always the enemy." -- Larry Wall (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates)
"Suppose I want to take over the world. Simplicity says I should just take over the world by myself." -- Larry Wall (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates)
"People get annoyed when you try to debug them." -- Larry Wall (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates)
"Computers may be stupid, but they're always obedient. Well, almost always." -- Larry Wall (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates)
"You know, how is The Force like duct tape? Answer: it has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together." -- Larry Wall (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates)
"Of course, in Perl culture, almost nothis is prohibited. My feeling is that the rest of the world already has plenty of perfectly good prohibitions, so why invent more?" -- Larry Wall (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates)
"There are a billion people in China. And I want them to be able to pass notes to each other written in Perl. I want them to be able to write poetry in Perl. That is my vision of the Future. My chosen perspective." -- Larry Wall (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates)
"Professional certification for car people may sound like an oxymoron." -The Wall Street Journal, page B1, Tuesday, July 17, 1990.
Humorix Holiday Gift Idea #2 Nerd Trading Cards Price: $10/pack Producer: Bottomms; 1-800-NRDS-ROK Forget baseball, nerd trading cards are the future. Now your kids can collect and trade cards of their favorite open source hackers and computer industry figures. Some of the cards included feature Linus Torvalds, Richard M. Stallman, and Larry Wall. Also contains cards for companies (Red Hat, Netscape, Transmeta, etc.), specific open source programs (Apache, Perl, Mozilla, etc.), and well-known websites (Slashdot, Freshmeat, etc.). Each card features a full-color picture on the front and complete information and statistics on back. Some of the cards have even been autographed. Quit trying to search eBay.com for a Mark McGwire rookie card and collect nerd cards instead!
OPPRESSED GEEK: Everybody keeps blaming me for the Y2K problem, the Melissa Virus, Windows crashes... you name it. When somebody finds out you're a bona fide geek, they start bugging you about computer problems. I frequently hear things like, "Why can't you geeks make Windows work right?", "What kind of idiot writes a program that can't handle the year 2000?", "Geeks are evil, all they do is write viruses", and "The Internet is the spawn of Satan". I'm afraid to admit I have extensive computing experience. When somebody asks what kind of job I have, I always lie. From my experience, admitting that you're a geek is an invitation to disaster. LARRY WALL: I know, I know. I sometimes say that I'm the founder of a pearl harvesting company instead of admitting that I'm the founder of the Perl programming language. ERIC S. RAYMOND: This is tragic. We can't live in a world like this. We need your donations to fight social oppression and ignorance against geekdom... -- Excerpt from the Geek Grok '99 telethon
New Linux Companies Hope To Get Rich Quick (#1) Adopt-A-Beowulf: the latest company to hop the Linux bandwagon as it tramples down Wall Street. Every geek dreams of owning their own Beowulf supercomputer. Very few people (except for dotcom billionnaires) can afford to build one, but the folks at Adopt-a-Beowulf can provide the next best thing: a virtual beowulf. For US$49.95, you can "adopt" your own 256-node Beowulf cluster. You won't own it, or even get to see it in person, but you will receive photos of the cluster, a monthly newsletter about its operation, and a limited shell account on it. The company hopes to branch out into other fields. Some slated products include Adopt-A-Penguin, Lease-A-Camel (for Perl mongers), and Adopt-A-Distro (in which your name will be used as the code-name for a beta release of a major Linux distribution or other Open Source project).
Brief History Of Linux (#4) Walls & Windows Most people don't realize that many of the technological innovations taken for granted in the 20th Century date back centuries ago. The concept of a network "firewall", for instance, is a product of the Great Wall of China, a crude attempt to keep raging forest fires out of Chinese territory. It was soon discovered that the Wall also kept Asian intruders ("steppe kiddies") out, just as modern-day firewalls keep network intruders ("script kiddies") out. Meanwhile, modern terminology for graphical user interfaces originated from Pre-Columbian peoples in Central and South America. These natives would drag-and-drop icons (sculptures of the gods) into vast pits of certain gooey substances during a ritual in which "mice" (musical instruments that made a strange clicking sound) were played to an eerie beat.
Brief History Of Linux (#12) A note from Bill Gates' second grade teacher: Billy has been having some trouble behaving in class lately... Last Monday he horded all of the crayons and refused to share, saying that he needed all 160 colors to maximize his 'innovation'. He then proceeded to sell little pieces of paper ("End-User License Agreement for Crayons" he called them) granting his classmates the 'non-transferable right' to use the crayons on a limited time basis in exchange for their lunch money... When I tried to stop Billy, he kept harping about his right to innovate and how my interference violated basic notions of free-market capitalism. "Holding a monopoly is not illegal," he rebutted. I chastised him for talking back, and then I took away the box of crayons so others could share them... angrily, he then pointed to a drawing of his hanging on the wall and yelled, "That's my picture! You don't have the right to present my copyrighted material in a public exhibition without my permission! You're pirating my intellectual property. Pirate! Pirate! Pirate!" I developed a headache that day that even the maximum dosage of Aspirin wasn't able to handle. And then on Tuesday, he conned several students out of their milk money by convincing them to play three-card Monty...
Brief History Of Linux (#20) Linux is born Linus' superhuman programming talent produced, within a year, a full operating system that rivaled Minix. The first official announcement on comp.os.minix came October 5th, in which Linus wrote these famous words: Do you pine for the nice days of minix-1.1, when men were men and wrote their own device drivers? Do you want to cut your teeth on an operating system that will achieve world domination within 15 years? Want to get rich quick by the end of the century by taking money from hordes of venture capitalists and clueless Wall Street suits? Need to get even with Bill Gates but don't know what to do except throw cream pies at him? Then this post might just be for you :-) Linux (which was known as "Lindows", "Freax", and "Billsux" for short periods in 1991) hit the bigtime on January 5, 1992 (exactly one year after Linus wasn't hit by a bus) when version 0.12 was released under the GNU GPL. Linus called his creation a "better Minix than Minix"; the famous Linus vs. Tanenbaum flamewar erupted soon thereafter on January 29th and injured several Usenet bystanders.
The Socioeconomic Group Formerly Known As "Geeks" Nobody wants to be called a "geek" anymore. The label, once worn proudly by members of the tech community as a symbol of their separation from mainstream society, is now suddenly out of style. It all started last week when some clueless PR firm released a list of the "Top 100 Geeks", including such anti-geeks as Bill Gates, Janet Reno, Paul Allen, and Jeff "One-Click" Bezos. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported that businessmen in South Korea are striving for the "Geek Chic" image by dressing like Bill Gates. Now that the Chief Bloatware Architect has been identified as a "geek", everybody else has bailed ship. Still undecided on a new label, the community now calls itself the S.E.G.K.A.G. (SocioEconomic Group formerly Known As Geeks). "I cannot tolerate belonging to the same subculture as Bill Gates!" explained one former geek. "If that manifestation of evil is called a 'geek', then so be it. I am now officially a nerd."
One family builds a wall, two families enjoy it.
You'd best be snoozin', 'cause you don't be gettin' no work done at 5 a.m. anyway. -- From the wall of the Wurster Hall stairwell
Let's start with conslutants who kept pushing crap into said network. And continue with those who had bred tons of worthless "certified" wankers pretending to be sysadmins, driving the wages down and replacing clued people with illiterate trash. Getting rid of script kiddies is nice, but fsckwits who are directly responsible for current situation should be first against the wall. - Al Viro on virus attacks
If we want something nice to get born in nine months, then sex has to happen. We want to have the kind of sex that is acceptable and fun for both people, not the kind where someone is getting screwed. Let's get some cross fertilization, but not someone getting screwed. -- Larry Wall
Let's call it an accidental feature. --Larry Wall
All language designers are arrogant. Goes with the territory... -- Larry Wall
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
AP/STT. Helsinki, Dec 5th, 6:22 AM. For immediate release. In order to allay fears about the continuity of the Linux project, Linus Torvalds together with his manager Tove Monni have released "Linus v2.0", affectionately known as "Kernel Hacker - The Next Generation". Linux stock prices on Wall Street rose sharply after the announcement; as one well-known analyst who wishes to remain anonymous says - "It shows a long-term commitment, and while we expect a short-term decrease in productivity, we feel that this solidifies the development in the long run". Other analysts downplay the importance of the event, and claim that just about anybody could have done it. "I'm glad somebody finally told them about the birds and the bees" one sceptic comments cryptically. But even the skeptics agree that it is an interesting turn of events. Others bring up other issues with the new version - "I'm especially intrigued by the fact that the new version is female, and look forward to seeing what the impact of that will be on future development. Will "Red Hat Linux" change to "Pink Hat Linux", for example?" -- Linus Torvalds announcing that he became father of a girl
All the big corporations depreciate their possessions, and you can, too, provided you use them for business purposes. For example, if you subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, a business-related newspaper, you can deduct the cost of your house, because, in the words of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger in a landmark 1979 tax decision: "Where else are you going to read the paper? Outside? What if it rains?" -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes"
Everyone who comes in here wants three things: (1) They want it quick. (2) They want it good. (3) They want it cheap. I tell 'em to pick two and call me back. -- sign on the back wall of a small printing company
NEW YORK-- Kraft Foods, Inc. announced today that its board of directors unanimously rejected the $11 billion takeover bid by Philip Morris and Co. A Kraft spokesman stated in a press conference that the offer was rejected because the $90-per-share bid did not reflect the true value of the company. Wall Street insiders, however, tell quite a different story. Apparently, the Kraft board of directors had all but signed the takeover agreement when they learned of Philip Morris' marketing plans for one of their major Middle East subsidiaries. To a person, the board voted to reject the bid when they discovered that the tobacco giant intended to reorganize Israeli Cheddar, Ltd., and name the new company Cheeses of Nazareth.
When you make your mark in the world, watch out for guys with erasers. -- The Wall Street Journal
All language designers are arrogant. Goes with the territory... :-) -- Larry Wall in <1991Jul13.010945.19157@netlabs.com
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>
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>
"And I don't like doing silly things (except on purpose)." -- Larry Wall in <1992Jul3.191825.14435@netlabs.com>
: 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>
/* And you'll never guess what the dog had / / in its mouth... / -- Larry Wall* in stab.c from the perl source code
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>
Be consistent. -- Larry Wall in the perl man page
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>
Besides, it's good to force C programmers to use the toolbox occasionally. :-) -- Larry Wall in <1991May31.181659.28817@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov>
Besides, REAL computers have a rename() system call. :-) -- Larry Wall in <7937@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
break; /* don't do magic till later / -- Larry Wall* in stab.c from the perl source code
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>
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>
/* dbmrefcnt--; / / doesn't work, rats / -- Larry Wall* in hash.c from the perl source code
#define NULL 0 /* silly thing is, we don't even use this / -- Larry Wall* in perl.c from the perl source code
#define SIGILL 6 /* blech / -- Larry Wall* in perl.c from the perl source code
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)
double value; /* or your money back! / short changed; / so triple your money back! / -- Larry Wall* in cons.c from the perl source code
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>
echo "Congratulations. You aren't running Eunice." -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution
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
echo "ICK, NOTHING WORKED!!! You may have to diddle the includes.";; -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution
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
echo "Your stdio isn't very std." -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution
#else /* !STDSTDIO / / The big, slow, and stupid way / -- Larry Wall* in str.c from the perl source code
[End of diatribe. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming...] -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution
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
"Help save the world!" -- Larry Wall in README
Hey, I had to let awk be better at something... :-) -- Larry Wall in <1991Nov7.200504.25280@netlabs.com>1
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>
I dunno, I dream in Perl sometimes... -- Larry Wall in <8538@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
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>
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>
"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>
if (instr(buf,sys_errlist[errno])) /* you don't see this / -- Larry Wall* in eval.c from the perl source code
if (rsfp = mypopen("/bin/mail root","w")) { /* heh, heh / -- Larry Wall* in perl.c from the perl source code
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>
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>
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>
If you want your program to be readable, consider supplying the argument. -- Larry Wall in the perl man page
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>
I'll say it again for the logic impaired. -- Larry Wall
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>
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>
In general, they do what you want, unless you want consistency. -- Larry Wall in the perl man page
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>
"It is easier to port a shell than a shell script." -- Larry Wall
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>
It's all magic. :-) -- Larry Wall in <7282@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
It's documented in The Book, somewhere... -- Larry Wall in <10502@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
> (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>
It's there as a sop to former Ada programmers. :-) -- Larry Wall regarding 10_000_000 in <11556@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
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>
: 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
: 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>
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>
Just don't compare it with a real language, or you'll be unhappy... :-) -- Larry Wall in <1992May12.190238.5667@netlabs.com>
Just don't create a file called -rf. :-) -- Larry Wall in <11393@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
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>
Let's say the docs present a simplified view of reality... :-) -- Larry Wall in <6940@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
Let us be charitable, and call it a misleading feature :-) -- Larry Wall in <2609@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov>
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
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>
/* now make a new head in the exact same spot / -- Larry Wall* in cons.c from the perl source code
OK, enough hype. -- Larry Wall in the perl man page
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
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
Perl itself is usually pretty good about telling you what you shouldn't do. :-) -- Larry Wall in <11091@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
Perl programming is an empirical science! -- Larry Wall in <10226@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
pos += screamnext[pos] /* does this goof up anywhere? / -- Larry Wall* in util.c from the perl source code
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>
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>
Real programmers can write assembly code in any language. :-) -- Larry Wall in <8571@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
Remember though that THERE IS NO GENERAL RULE FOR CONVERTING A LIST INTO A SCALAR. -- Larry Wall in the perl man page
s = (char)(long)retval; / ouch / -- Larry Wall* in doio.c from the perl source code
signal(i, SIG_DFL); /* crunch, crunch, crunch / -- Larry Wall* in doarg.c from the perl source code
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>
stab_val(stab)->str_nok = 1; /* what a wonderful hack! / -- Larry Wall* in stab.c from the perl source code
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
That means I'll have to use $ans to suppress newlines now. Life is ridiculous. -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution
The autodecrement is not magical. -- Larry Wall in the perl man page
The only disadvantage I see is that it would force everyone to get Perl. Horrors. :-) -- Larry Wall in <8854@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
* The previous line contains the naughty word "$&".\n if /(ibm\|apple\|awk)/; # :-) -- Larry Wall** in the perl man page
There ain't nothin' in this world that's worth being a snot over. -- Larry Wall in <1992Aug19.041614.6963@netlabs.com>
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>
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>
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>
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
"The road to hell is paved with melting snowballs." -- Larry Wall in <1992Jul2.222039.26476@netlabs.com>
/* 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
"...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>
> 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
Though I'll admit readability suffers slightly... -- Larry Wall in <2969@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov>
tmps_base = tmps_max; /* protect our mortal string / -- Larry Wall* in stab.c from the perl source code
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>
"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>
/* we have tried to make this normal case as abnormal as possible / -- Larry Wall* in cmd.c from the perl source code
What about WRITING it first and rationalizing it afterwords? :-) -- Larry Wall in <8162@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
"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>
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
"You can't have filenames longer than 14 chars. You can't even think about them!" -- Larry Wall in Configure from the perl distribution
You have to admit that it's difficult to misplace the Perl sources. :-) -- Larry Wall in <1992Aug26.184221.29627@netlabs.com>
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
You want it in one line? Does it have to fit in 80 columns? :-) -- Larry Wall in <7349@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
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>
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>
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>
The whole history of computers is rampant with cheerleading at best and bigotry at worst. -- Larry Wall in <199702111730.JAA28598@wall.org>
Unix weanies are as bad at this as anyone. -- Larry Wall in <199702111730.JAA28598@wall.org>
If someone stinks, view it as a reason to help them, not a reason to avoid them. -- Larry Wall in <199702111730.JAA28598@wall.org>
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>
Odd that we think definitions are definitive. :-) -- Larry Wall in <199702221943.LAA20388@wall.org>
: But for some things, Perl just isn't the optimal choice. (yet) :-) -- Larry Wall in <199702221943.LAA20388@wall.org>
I don't like this official/unofficial distinction. It sound, er, officious. -- Larry Wall in <199702221943.LAA20388@wall.org>
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>
Perl 5 introduced everything else, including the ability to introduce everything else. -- Larry Wall in <199702252152.NAA28845@wall.org>
So far we've managed to avoid turning Perl into APL. :-) -- Larry Wall in <199702251904.LAA28261@wall.org>
Not that I have anything much against redundancy. But I said that already. -- Larry Wall in <199702271735.JAA04048@wall.org>
They can always run stderr through uniq. :-) -- Larry Wall in <199704012331.PAA16535@wall.org>
I'd put my money where my mouth is, but my mouth keeps moving. -- Larry Wall in <199704051723.JAA28035@wall.org>
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>
Call me bored, but don't call me boring. -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org>
I think $[ is more like a coelacanth than a mastadon. -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org>
: 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>
We question most of the mantras around here periodically, in case you hadn't noticed. :-) -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org>
(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>
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>
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>
The core is not frozen, but slushy. -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org>
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>
Randal can write one-liners again. Everyone is happy, and peace spreads over the whole Earth. -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org>
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>
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>
Obviously I was either onto something, or on something. -- Larry Wall on the creation of Perl
It's the Magic that counts. -- Larry Wall on Perl's apparent ugliness
May you do Good Magic with Perl. -- Larry Wall's blessing
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>
You can prove anything by mentioning another computer language. :-) -- Larry Wall in <199706242038.NAA29853@wall.org>
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>
I'm sure a mathematician would claim that 0 and 1 are both very interesting numbers. :-) -- Larry Wall in <199707300650.XAA05515@wall.org>
True, it returns "" for false, but "" is an even more interesting number than 0. -- Larry Wall in <199707300650.XAA05515@wall.org>
Any false value is gonna be fairly boring in Perl, mathematicians notwithstanding. -- Larry Wall in <199707300650.XAA05515@wall.org>
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>
Anybody want a binary telemetry frame editor written in Perl? -- Larry Wall in <199708012226.PAA22015@wall.org>
Most places distinguish them merely by using the appropriate value. Hooray for context... -- Larry Wall in <199708040319.UAA16213@wall.org>
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>
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>
Perhaps I'm missing the gene for making enemies. :-) -- Larry Wall in <199708040319.UAA16213@wall.org>
Perl has a long tradition of working around compilers. -- Larry Wall in <199708252256.PAA00105@wall.org>
Personally, I like to defiantly split my infinitives. :-) -- Larry Wall in <199708271551.IAA10211@wall.org>
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>
But maybe we don't really need that... -- Larry Wall in <199709011851.LAA07101@wall.org>
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>
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>
I don't think I'm gonna agree with that. Way too much visual confusion... -- Larry Wall in <199709021627.JAA11966@wall.org>
There's certainly precedent for that already too. (Not claiming it's good precedent, mind you. :-) -- Larry Wall in <199709021744.KAA12428@wall.org>
Of course, this being Perl, we could always take both approaches. :-) -- Larry Wall in <199709021744.KAA12428@wall.org>
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>
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>
At many levels, Perl is a "diagonal" language. -- Larry Wall in <199709021854.LAA12794@wall.org>
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>
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>
Sometimes we choose the generalization. Sometimes we don't. -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org>
I wouldn't ever write the full sentence myself, but then, I never use goto either. -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org>
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>
Oh, get ahold of yourself. Nobody's proposing that we parse English. -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org>
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>
I hope I'm not getting so famous that I can't think out load [sic] anymore. -- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org>
It would be possible to optimize some forms of goto, but I haven't bothered. -- Larry Wall in <199709041935.MAA27136@wall.org>
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>
How do Crays and Alphas handle the POSIX problem? -- Larry Wall in <199709050042.RAA29379@wall.org>
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>
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>
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>
The choice of approaches could be made the responsibility of the programmer. -- Larry Wall in <199709081901.MAA20863@wall.org>
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>
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>
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>
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>
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>
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>
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>
Oh, wait, that was Randal...nevermind... -- Larry Wall in <199709261754.KAA23761@wall.org>
:-) your own self. -- Larry Wall in <199709261754.KAA23761@wall.org>
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>
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>
: 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>
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>
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>
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>
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>
I surely do hope that's a syntax error. -- Larry Wall in <199710011752.KAA21624@wall.org>
Soitainly. I was assuming that came with the OO-ness of it. -- Larry Wall in <199710011802.LAA21692@wall.org>
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
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>
I'm not sure whether that's actually useful... -- Larry Wall in <199710011704.KAA21395@wall.org>
Anyway, my money is still on use strict vars . . . -- Larry Wall in <199710011704.KAA21395@wall.org>
By rule #1, 5.005 should always allow localization of lexical @_ . . . -- Larry Wall in <199710011704.KAA21395@wall.org>
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>
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>
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>
I don't think it's worth washing hogs over. -- Larry Wall in <199710060253.TAA09723@wall.org>
It's certainly easy to calculate the average attendance for Perl conferences. -- Larry Wall in <199710071721.KAA19014@wall.org>
Tcl tends to get ported to weird places like routers. -- Larry Wall in <199710071721.KAA19014@wall.org>
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>
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
Just don't make the '9' format pack/unpack numbers... :-) -- Larry Wall in <199710091434.HAA00838@wall.org>
I think that's easier to read. Pardon me. Less difficult to read. -- Larry Wall in <199710120226.TAA06867@wall.org>
That wouldn't be good enough. -- Larry Wall in <199710131621.JAA14907@wall.org>
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>
The prayer of serenity applies here. To both of us. :-) -- Larry Wall in <199710141802.LAA22443@wall.org>
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>
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>
As pointed out in a followup, Real Perl Programmers prefer things to be visually distinct. -- Larry Wall in <199710161841.LAA13208@wall.org>
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>
That should probably be written: no !@#$%^&:@!semicolon -- Larry Wall* in <199710161841.LAA13208@wall.org>
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>
Depends on how you define "always". :-) -- Larry Wall in <199710211647.JAA17957@wall.org>
'Course, that doesn't work when 'a' contains parentheses. -- Larry Wall in <199710211647.JAA17957@wall.org>
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>
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>
(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>
But you'll notice Perl has a goto. -- Larry Wall in <199710211624.JAA17833@wall.org>
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>
Wow, I'm being shot at from both sides. That means I must be right. :-) -- Larry Wall in <199710211959.MAA18990@wall.org>
You don't have to wait--you can have it in 5.004_54 or so. :-) -- Larry Wall in <199710221740.KAA24455@wall.org>
There's something to be said for returning the whole syntax tree. -- Larry Wall in <199710221833.LAA24741@wall.org>
It's not really a rule--it's more like a trend. -- Larry Wall in <199710221721.KAA24321@wall.org>
Double sigh. _04 is going onto thousands of CDs even as we speak, so to speak. -- Larry Wall in <199710221718.KAA24299@wall.org>
The code also assumes that it's difficult to misspell "a" or "b". :-) -- Larry Wall in <199710221731.KAA24396@wall.org>
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>
No, that'd be silly. -- Larry Wall in <199710221710.KAA24242@wall.org>
People who understand context would be steamed to have someone else dictating how they can call it. -- Larry Wall in <199710221710.KAA24242@wall.org>
For the sake of argument I'll ignore all your fighting words. -- Larry Wall in <199710221710.KAA24242@wall.org>
Think of prototypes as a funny markup language--the interpretation is left up to the rendering engine. -- Larry Wall in <199710221710.KAA24242@wall.org>
Either approach may give birth to various sorts of monstrosities. -- Larry Wall in <199710221950.MAA25210@wall.org>
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>
Obviously your filters are throwing away mail from Randal. :-) -- Larry Wall in <199710221937.MAA25131@wall.org>
Beauty? What's that? -- Larry Wall in <199710221937.MAA25131@wall.org>
Oh yeah. Forgot about those. Getting senile, I guess... -- Larry Wall in <199710261551.HAA17791@wall.org>
'Course, I haven't weighed in yet. :-) -- Larry Wall in <199710281816.KAA29614@wall.org>
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>
I suppose one could claim that an undocumented feature has no semantics. :-( -- Larry Wall in <199710290036.QAA01818@wall.org>
: How would you disambiguate these situations? By shooting the person who did the latter. -- Larry Wall in <199710290235.SAA02444@wall.org>
Yes, we have consensus that we need 64 bit support. :-) -- Larry Wall in <199710291922.LAA07101@wall.org>
: - cut in regexps I don't think we reached consensus on that. We're still backtracking... -- Larry Wall in <199710291922.LAA07101@wall.org>
Maybe it's time to break that. -- Larry Wall in <199710311718.JAA19082@wall.org>
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>
Perhaps they will have to outlaw sending random lists of words. fee fie foe foo [sic] -- Larry Wall in <199710311916.LAA19760@wall.org>
Hey, if pi == 3, and three == 0, does that make pi == 0? :-) -- Larry Wall in <199711011926.LAA25557@wall.org>
I think you're letting your knowledge of internals interfere with your linguistic judgement here. -- Larry Wall in <199711011949.LAA25651@wall.org>
(Never thought I'd be telling Malcolm and Ilya the same thing... :-) -- Larry Wall in <199711071819.KAA29909@wall.org>
And other operators aren't so special syntactically, but weird in other ways, like "scalar", and "goto". -- Larry Wall in <199711071749.JAA29751@wall.org>
Portability should be the default. -- Larry Wall in <199711072201.OAA01123@wall.org>
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>
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>
Are you perchance running on a 64-bit machine? -- Larry Wall in <199711102149.NAA16878@wall.org>
Almost nothing in Perl serves a single purpose. -- Larry Wall in <199712040054.QAA13811@wall.org>
There's some entertainment value in watching people juggle nitroglycerin. -- Larry Wall in <199712041747.JAA18908@wall.org>
Reserve your abuse for your true friends. -- Larry Wall in <199712041852.KAA19364@wall.org>
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>
It's hard to tune heavily tuned code. :-) -- Larry Wall in <199801141725.JAA07555@wall.org>
Perl will always provide the null. -- Larry Wall in <199801151818.KAA14538@wall.org>
It's easy to solve the halting problem with a shotgun. :-) -- Larry Wall in <199801151836.KAA14656@wall.org>
Well, I think Perl should run faster than C. :-) -- Larry Wall in <199801200306.TAA11638@wall.org>
To Perl, or not to Perl, that is the kvetching. -- Larry Wall in <199801200310.TAA11670@wall.org>
Yow! It's some people inside the wall! This is better than mopping!