Perl Quotes

• What you see is what you see.

  Frank Stella

  Cheer, Gossip Girl, Love Life

  Stephanie Rosenthal, Ad Reinhardt, Haus der Kunst München, Mark Rothko, Frank Stella (2006). “Black paintings”

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• My final remark to young women and men going into experimental science is that they should pay little attention to the speculative physics ideas of my generation. After all, if my generation has any really good speculative ideas, we will be carrying these ideas out ourselves.

  Martin Lewis Perl

  Science, Men, Ideas

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• What you see is what you get.

  Flip Wilson

  Cheer, Gossip Girl, Love Life

  "Character: Geraldine". "Flip", TV Series, www.imdb.com. 1970-1974.

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• What is the sound of Perl? Is it not the sound of a wall that people have stopped banging their heads against?

  Larry Wall

  Wall, People, Sound

  Usenet article, 1992.

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• Perl is designed to give you several ways to do anything, so consider picking the most readable one.

  Larry Wall

  Giving, Way, Computer

  Tom Christiansen, brian d foy, Larry Wall, Jon Orwant (2012). “Programming Perl: Unmatched Power for Text Processing and Scripting”, p.702, "O'Reilly Media, Inc."

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• Lief. That's not nice, considering all your sister has done for you," admonished Perl. "Oh right. How could I forget that she made me bait for a snake, left me on house arrest in Ixia, and smuggled me into the Keep in a coffin.

  Maria V. Snyder

  Nice, Snakes, House

  "Fire Study". Book by Maria V. Snyder, 2008.

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• I try not to confuse roles and traits in my own life. Being the Perl god is a role. Being a stubborn cuss is a trait.

  Larry Wall

  Trying, Roles, Stubborn

  Usenet article <20031215021442.GA4012@wall.org>, groups.google.com. December 15, 2003.

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• And besides, if Perl really takes off in the Windows space, I think the rest of us would just as soon have a double-agent within ActiveState.

  Larry Wall

  Thinking, Space, Agents

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• Perhaps you should compile your Perl with long doubles one of these megaseconds.

  Larry Wall

  Long, Should

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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

  Daughter, Said, Shoulders

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• When I announced the development of Perl 6, I said it was going to be a community design. I designed Perl, myself. It's limited by my own brain power. So I wanted Perl 6 to be a community design.

  Larry Wall

  Power, Design, Community

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• Perl was designed to work more like a natural language. It's a little more complicated but there are more shortcuts, and once you learned the language, it's more expressive.

  Larry Wall

  Keys, Littles, Shortcuts

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• I want people to use Perl. I want to be a positive ingredient of the world and make my American history. So, whatever it takes to give away my software and get it used, that's great.

  Larry Wall

  People, Giving, Use

  Interview with Maya Tamiya, lwn.net. January 17, 2001.

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• Perl doesn't have an infatuation with enforced privacy. It would prefer that you stayed out of its living room because you weren't invited, not because it has a shotgun

  Larry Wall

  Rooms, Privacy, Infatuation

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• Well, you can implement a Perl peek() with unpack('P',...). Once you have that, there's only security through obscurity.

  Larry Wall

  Obscurity, Wells, Security

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• The camel has evolved to be relatively self-sufficient. On the other hand, the camel has not evolved to smell good. Neither has Perl.

  Larry Wall

  Self, Hands, Smell

  Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, Jon Orwant (2004). “Programming Perl: 3rd Edition”, p.4, "O'Reilly Media, Inc."

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• If Perl is the solution, you're solving the wrong problem.

  Erik Naggum

  Problem, Solutions, Ifs

  Re: Q: on hashes and counting (Usenet article), groups.google.com. October 19, 2000.

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• I guess there are some things that are so gross you just have to forget, or it'll destroy something within you. Perl is the first such thing I have known.

  Erik Naggum

  Firsts, Forget, Gross

  Re: can lisp do what perl does easily?(Usenet article), groups.google.com. March 28, 2000.

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• Part of any serious QA is removing Perl code the same way you go over a dilapidated building you inherit to remove chewing gum and duct tape and fix whatever was kept together for real.

  Erik Naggum

  Real, Together, Tape

  Re: can lisp do what perl does easily? (Usenet article), groups.google.com. March 23, 2000.

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• I want to see people using Perl to glue things together creatively, not just technically but also socially.

  Larry Wall

  People, Together, Glue

  Usenet article <199702111730.JAA28598@wall.org>, 1997.

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• [Perl] combines all the worst aspects of C and Lisp: a billion different sublanguages in one monolithic executable. It combines the power of C with the readability of PostScript.

  Jamie Zawinski

  Different, Aspect, Worst

  Usenet article "Perl and XEmacs", groups.google.com. August 16, 1997.

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• Perl should remain fast and intuitive (to the extent that it is :-)

  Larry Wall

  Should, Intuitive

  Usenet article, 1998.

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• But the possibility of abuse may be a good reason for leaving capabilities out of other computer languages, it's not a good reason for leaving capabilities out of Perl.

  Larry Wall

  Leaving, Abuse, May

  Usenet article <199709251614.JAA15718@wall.org>, 1997.

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• Almost nothing in Perl serves a single purpose.

  Larry Wall

  Purpose

  Usenet article <199712040054.QAA13811@wall.org>, 1997.

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• I view the JVM as just another architecture that Perl ought to be ported to. (That, and the Underwood typewriter...)

  Larry Wall

  Typewriters, Views, Architecture

  Usenet article <199808050415.VAA24026@wall.org>, 1998.

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