Latest Larry Wall Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• Basically there's just so much stuff flowing past on the internet now, you have to let most of it go. And I've grown accustomed to the process of not worrying too much about the stuff I'm not getting to, because the important stuff will come back around.

  Larry Wall

  Past, Worrying Too Much, Important

  Big Think Interview, bigthink.com.

• Never put off till tomorrow what you can put off till the day after tomorrow. Like a variant of the song, Tomorrow, only it's more of the idea, the Mexican idea of mañana, you know, [singing] mañana, mañana, I love you, mañana, you're always a day away.

  Larry Wall

  Song, Love You, Ideas

  "How to Code Like Larry Wall". Big Think Interview, bigthink.com.

• 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

  Brain, Mind, Wheels

  "How to Code Like Larry Wall". Big Think Interview, bigthink.com.

• While I have historically been a late worker, you know, sometimes I even like to get up early and see what's happened in the few hours of the night and then I often take a nap in the middle of the day just to sort of make up for stretching my day out.

  Larry Wall

  Night, Naps, Up Early

  "How to Code Like Larry Wall". Big Think Interview, bigthink.com.

• Well, coffee is my drug of choice, generally, with a little bit of Pepsi here and there, if I need more sugar. But yeah, if I could do intravenous coffee, I would. But I guess that's pretty standard.

  Larry Wall

  Coffee, Choices, Drug

  Source: bigthink.com

• I'm not too concerned about the future of Perl after me, because I see how these people are interacting with each other and even when I'm not there, they are helping each other and solving each other's problems in a way that I could not do, even if I were there.

  Larry Wall

  People, Way, Helping

  "How to Code Like Larry Wall". Big Think Interview, bigthink.com.

• I've had to learn kind of sense when the questions would be coming and be ready to handle them. There's a lot of education and reiteration that happens on these online channels and sometimes it's tempting to just say, "Well, just go and read the documentation," but you know, people appreciate being led along and taught and mentored.

  Larry Wall

  People, Appreciate, Would Be

  "How to Code Like Larry Wall". Big Think Interview, bigthink.com.

• I'm definitely a night owl. I get going about the time my wife crashes and goes to bed. And in some sense, I've had to learn to be more of a cat napper in recent years because Perl development, Perl design and development, has become a worldwide phenomenon - not just mailing lists, but RSC channels, Twitter even. This all happens 24 hours a day. And people come up with questions at any time of the day or night.

  Larry Wall

  Cat, Night, Years

  "How to Code Like Larry Wall". Big Think Interview, bigthink.com.

• You know, I've got my hands in 30 or 40 different pots simultaneously and so I have a little bit of all of that where I work.

  Larry Wall

  Hands, Different, Littles

  Big Think Interview, bigthink.com.

• A lazy person will try to always find some way to do something; they'll always be looking for ways of doing something faster, more efficiently, and if you really want to control the world, that's a really sort of hubristic notion - excessive pride, the thing that Zeus zaps you for having.

  Larry Wall

  Pride, Lazy, Trying

  Source: bigthink.com

• I was raised a musician and I played classic music, violin, in orchestras and music comedy theaters, I have music running around in my head all the time, and if I hear music that's too interesting, I have to pay attention to it.

  Larry Wall

  Running, Interesting, Musician

  Source: bigthink.com

• Computer programming is really a lot like writing a recipe. If you've read a recipe, you know what the structure of a recipe is, it's got some things up at the top that are your ingredients, and below that, the directions for how to deal with those ingredients.

  Larry Wall

  Writing, Recipes, Ingredients

  Source: bigthink.com

• Human languages tend to be much more ambiguous than computer languages because humans are much smarter about interpreting the context.

  Larry Wall

  Language, Computer, Ambiguous

  Source: bigthink.com

• Natural languages generally are not designed by humans, they're just designed by the participants and you say something new and somebody else says, "Oh, that's a cool way to say it," and the next thing you know, everyone is saying it because it's shiny.

  Larry Wall

  Way, Next, Language

  Source: bigthink.com

• So many computer languages try to force you into one way of thinking and Perl is very much the opposite of that approach. It's kind of like a, well, sometimes Perl has been called the Swiss army chainsaw of the internet, but it's more like a Swiss army machine shop. It really gives you a lot of tools, some of which are dangerous, but it lets you get your job done very quickly.

  Larry Wall

  Jobs, Army, Thinking

  Source: bigthink.com

• You don't have to know the whole language to use it usefully, you can do baby talk, you can do grown up talk, you can cuss in it, you can write poetry, you can be a playwright, is sort of the idea.

  Larry Wall

  Baby, Writing, Ideas

  "Big Think Interview". bigthink.com.

• There's many scripting languages in the world, Perl is a little bit special because it is based more on some ideas from the way natural languages work.

  Larry Wall

  Ideas, Special, World

  Source: bigthink.com

• There's a saying in the software design industry: "Good. Fast. Cheap. Pick two."

  Larry Wall

  Two, Design, Software

  Source: www.linuxformat.com

• I'm a great believer in visual distinctions.

  Larry Wall

  Distinction, Believer, Visuals

  Source: www.linuxformat.com