Randal can write one-liners again.  Everyone is happy, and peace spreads over the whole Earth.\n-- 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.\n-- 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.\n-- Larry Wall in <199705102042.NAA00851@wall.org>
Obviously I was either onto something, or on something.\n-- Larry Wall on the creation of Perl
It's the Magic that counts.\n-- Larry Wall on Perl's apparent ugliness
May you do Good Magic with Perl.\n-- 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...\n-- Larry Wall in <199705201832.LAA28393@wall.org>
You can prove anything by mentioning another computer language.  :-)\n-- 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.  :-)\n-- Larry Wall in <199706251602.JAA01786@wall.org>
I'm sure a mathematician would claim that 0 and 1 are both very interesting numbers.  :-)\n-- Larry Wall in <199707300650.XAA05515@wall.org>
True, it returns "" for false, but "" is an even more interesting number than 0.\n-- Larry Wall in <199707300650.XAA05515@wall.org>
Any false value is gonna be fairly boring in Perl, mathematicians notwithstanding.\n-- 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.  :-/\n-- Larry Wall in <199707300650.XAA05515@wall.org>
Anybody want a binary telemetry frame editor written in Perl?\n-- Larry Wall in <199708012226.PAA22015@wall.org>
Most places distinguish them merely by using the appropriate value. Hooray for context...\n-- 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.\n-- 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.\n-- Larry Wall in <199708040319.UAA16213@wall.org>
Perhaps I'm missing the gene for making enemies.  :-)\n-- Larry Wall in <199708040319.UAA16213@wall.org>
Perl has a long tradition of working around compilers.\n-- Larry Wall in <199708252256.PAA00105@wall.org>
Personally, I like to defiantly split my infinitives.  :-)\n-- 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.  :-)\n-- Larry Wall in <199708261932.MAA05218@wall.org>
But maybe we don't really need that...\n-- 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.\n-- 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.\n-- Larry Wall in <199709020026.RAA08431@wall.org>
I don't think I'm gonna agree with that.  Way too much visual confusion...\n-- Larry Wall in <199709021627.JAA11966@wall.org>
There's certainly precedent for that already too.  (Not claiming it's *good* precedent, mind you. :-)\n-- Larry Wall in <199709021744.KAA12428@wall.org>
Of course, this being Perl, we could always take both approaches.  :-)\n-- 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.\n-- 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.\n-- Larry Wall in <199709021854.LAA12794@wall.org>
At many levels, Perl is a "diagonal" language.\n-- 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.\n-- 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.\n-- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org>
Sometimes we choose the generalization.  Sometimes we don't.\n-- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org>
I wouldn't ever write the full sentence myself, but then, I never use goto either.\n-- 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.\n-- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org>
Oh, get ahold of yourself.  Nobody's proposing that we parse English.\n-- 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... :-)\n-- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org>
I hope I'm not getting so famous that I can't think out load [sic] anymore.\n-- Larry Wall in <199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org>
It would be possible to optimize some forms of goto, but I haven't bothered.\n-- 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.\n-- Larry Wall in <199709041935.MAA27136@wall.org>
How do Crays and Alphas handle the POSIX problem?\n-- 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.\n-- 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.\n-- 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.  :-)\n-- Larry Wall in <199709081801.LAA20629@wall.org>
The choice of approaches could be made the responsibility of the programmer.\n-- 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.\n-- 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.\n-- 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.\n-- 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.\n-- 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...\n-- 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.\n-- 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.\n-- Larry Wall in <199709251614.JAA15718@wall.org>
Oh, wait, that was Randal...nevermind...\n-- Larry Wall in <199709261754.KAA23761@wall.org>
:-) your own self.\n-- 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...   :-)\n-- 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.\n-- 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.\n-- 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.\n-- 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).\n-- 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.\n-- Larry Wall in <199709302338.QAA17037@wall.org>
switch (ref $@) {\nOverflowError => warn "Dam needs to be drained";\nDomainError => warn "King needs to be trained";\nNuclearWarError => die;\n}\n-- Larry Wall in <199709302338.QAA17037@wall.org>
I surely do hope that's a syntax error.\n-- Larry Wall in <199710011752.KAA21624@wall.org>
Soitainly.  I was assuming that came with the OO-ness of it.\n-- 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.\n-- 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.\n-- Larry Wall in <199710011704.KAA21395@wall.org>
I'm not sure whether that's actually useful...\n-- Larry Wall in <199710011704.KAA21395@wall.org>
Anyway, my money is still on use strict vars . . .\n-- Larry Wall in <199710011704.KAA21395@wall.org>
By rule #1, 5.005 should always allow localization of lexical @_ . . .\n-- 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.\n-- 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.\n-- Larry Wall in <199710050130.SAA04762@wall.org>
I don't think it's worth washing hogs over.\n-- Larry Wall in <199710060253.TAA09723@wall.org>
It's certainly easy to calculate the average attendance for Perl conferences.\n-- Larry Wall in <199710071721.KAA19014@wall.org>
Tcl tends to get ported to weird places like routers.\n-- 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.)\n-- Larry Wall in <199710071721.KAA19014@wall.org>
I knew I'd hate COBOL the moment I saw they'd used "perform" instead of "do".\n-- Larry Wall on a not-so-popular programming language
Just don't make the '9' format pack/unpack numbers...  :-)\n-- Larry Wall in <199710091434.HAA00838@wall.org>
I think that's easier to read.  Pardon me.  Less difficult to read.\n-- Larry Wall in <199710120226.TAA06867@wall.org>
That wouldn't be good enough.\n-- 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.  :-)\n-- Larry Wall in <199710141738.KAA22289@wall.org>
The prayer of serenity applies here.  To both of us.  :-)\n-- 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.  :-)\n-- 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...  :-)\n-- Larry Wall in <199710161546.IAA07885@wall.org>
As pointed out in a followup, Real Perl Programmers prefer things to be visually distinct.\n-- 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.\n-- Larry Wall in <199710161841.LAA13208@wall.org>
That should probably be written|no !@#$%^&*:@!semicolon\n-- Larry Wall in <199710161841.LAA13208@wall.org>
Depends on how you define "always".  :-)\n-- Larry Wall in <199710211647.JAA17957@wall.org>
'Course, that doesn't work when 'a' contains parentheses.\n-- 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.\n-- 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.)\n-- 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". :-))\n-- Larry Wall in <199710211624.JAA17833@wall.org>
But you'll notice Perl has a goto.\n-- 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).\n-- Larry Wall in <199710211624.JAA17833@wall.org>
Wow, I'm being shot at from both sides.  That means I *must* be right.  :-)\n-- Larry Wall in <199710211959.MAA18990@wall.org>
You don't have to wait--you can have it in 5.004_54 or so.  :-)\n-- Larry Wall in <199710221740.KAA24455@wall.org>
There's something to be said for returning the whole syntax tree.\n-- Larry Wall in <199710221833.LAA24741@wall.org>
It's not really a rule--it's more like a trend.\n-- Larry Wall in <199710221721.KAA24321@wall.org>
Double *sigh*.  _04 is going onto thousands of CDs even as we speak, so to speak.\n-- Larry Wall in <199710221718.KAA24299@wall.org>
The code also assumes that it's difficult to misspell "a" or "b".  :-)\n-- 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".\n-- Larry Wall in <199710221744.KAA24484@wall.org>
No, that'd be silly.\n-- Larry Wall in <199710221710.KAA24242@wall.org>
People who understand context would be steamed to have someone else dictating how they can call it.\n-- Larry Wall in <199710221710.KAA24242@wall.org>
For the sake of argument I'll ignore all your fighting words.\n-- Larry Wall in <199710221710.KAA24242@wall.org>
Think of prototypes as a funny markup language--the interpretation is left up to the rendering engine.\n-- Larry Wall in <199710221710.KAA24242@wall.org>
Either approach may give birth to various sorts of monstrosities.\n-- 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.\n-- Larry Wall in <199710221859.LAA24889@wall.org>
Obviously your filters are throwing away mail from Randal.  :-)\n-- Larry Wall in <199710221937.MAA25131@wall.org>
Beauty?  What's that?\n-- Larry Wall in <199710221937.MAA25131@wall.org>
Oh yeah.  Forgot about those.  Getting senile, I guess...\n-- Larry Wall in <199710261551.HAA17791@wall.org>
'Course, I haven't weighed in yet.  :-)\n-- 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."\n-- Larry Wall in <199710281816.KAA29614@wall.org>
I suppose one could claim that an undocumented feature has no semantics.  :-(\n-- Larry Wall in <199710290036.QAA01818@wall.org>
: How would you disambiguate these situations? By shooting the person who did the latter.\n-- Larry Wall in <199710290235.SAA02444@wall.org>
Yes, we have consensus that we need 64 bit support.  :-)\n-- Larry Wall in <199710291922.LAA07101@wall.org>
:  - cut in regexps I don't think we reached consensus on that.  We're still backtracking...\n-- Larry Wall in <199710291922.LAA07101@wall.org>
Maybe it's time to break that.\n-- Larry Wall in <199710311718.JAA19082@wall.org>
Perhaps they will have to outlaw sending random lists of words.  fee fie foe foo [sic]\n-- Larry Wall in <199710311916.LAA19760@wall.org>
Hey, if pi == 3, and three == 0, does that make pi == 0?  :-)\n-- Larry Wall in <199711011926.LAA25557@wall.org>
I think you're letting your knowledge of internals interfere with your linguistic judgement here.\n-- Larry Wall in <199711011949.LAA25651@wall.org>
(Never thought I'd be telling Malcolm and Ilya the same thing... :-)\n-- Larry Wall in <199711071819.KAA29909@wall.org>
And other operators aren't so special syntactically, but weird in other ways, like "scalar", and "goto".\n-- Larry Wall in <199711071749.JAA29751@wall.org>
Portability should be the default.\n-- 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.\n-- Larry Wall in <199711081945.LAA06315@wall.org>
If this were Ada, I suppose we'd just constant fold 1/0 into\ndie "Illegal division by zero"\n-- Larry Wall in <199711100226.SAA12549@wall.org>
Are you perchance running on a 64-bit machine?\n-- Larry Wall in <199711102149.NAA16878@wall.org>
Almost nothing in Perl serves a single purpose.\n-- Larry Wall in <199712040054.QAA13811@wall.org>
There's some entertainment value in watching people juggle nitroglycerin.\n-- Larry Wall in <199712041747.JAA18908@wall.org>
Reserve your abuse for your true friends.\n-- 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.\n-- Larry Wall in <199801081824.KAA29602@wall.org>
It's hard to tune heavily tuned code.  :-)\n-- Larry Wall in <199801141725.JAA07555@wall.org>
Perl will always provide the null.\n-- Larry Wall in <199801151818.KAA14538@wall.org>
It's easy to solve the halting problem with a shotgun.   :-)\n-- Larry Wall in <199801151836.KAA14656@wall.org>
Well, I think Perl should run faster than C.  :-)\n-- Larry Wall in <199801200306.TAA11638@wall.org>
To Perl, or not to Perl, that is the kvetching.\n-- Larry Wall in <199801200310.TAA11670@wall.org>
