Larry Wall is a programmer at JPL; in his copious free time :-) he has authored some of the most popular free programs available for UNIX, including the rn news reader, the ubiquitous patch program, and the perl programming language. He's also known for metaconfig, a program that writes Configure scripts, and for the warp space-war game, the first version of which was written in BASIC/PLUS at Seattle Pacific University. By training Larry is actually a linguist, having wandered about both U.C. Berkeley and U.C.L.A. as a grad student. (Oddly enough, while at Berkeley, he had nothing to do with the UNIX development going on there.)

He also spent time at Unisys, playing with everything from discrete event simulators to software development methodologies. It was there, while trying to glue together a bicoastal configuration management system over a 1200 baud encrypted link using a hacked-over version of Netnews, that perl was born.

Larry's homepage is here. His wit has entertained many on the comp.lang.perl newsgroups. Here are some of my favourite lwall quips about life and perl:

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

"I dunno, I dream in Perl sometimes..."

"In general, if you think something isn't in Perl, try it out, because it usually is. :-)"

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

"All language designers are arrogant. Goes with the territory... :-)"

"111% of crap is everything."

"Any computer scientist who praises orthogonality should be sentenced to use an Etch-a-Sketch."

"Be consistent."

"The road to hell is paved with melting snowballs."

"Have the appropriate amount of fun."

"Help save the world!"

"Historically speaking, the presence of wheels in Unix has never precluded their reinvention."

"I already have too much problem with people thinking the efficiency of a perl construct is related to its length. On the other hand, I'm perfectly capable of changing my mind next week..."

"I can only bend the rules so much before it starts looking like I'm breaking the rules."

"I do quarrel with logic that says, `Stupid people are associated with X, therefore X is stupid.' Stupid people are associated with everything."

"If you only have a nail, you tend to see every hammer as a problem."

"It's all magic. :-)"

"It's easier to make up sayings people like to hear than sayings they like to heed."

"It's okay to be wrong temporarily."

"Just because my fingers are in my ears doesn't mean I'm ignoring you."

"Just because something is obviously happening doesn't mean something obvious is happening."

"Just because you're into control doesn't mean you're in control."

"Just because you're screwed *up* doesn't mean your screwed."

"Let's say the docs present a simplified view of reality..."

"New versions happen."

"Real programmers can write assembly code in any language."

"Some people think abstraction makes things easier, while others think it makes things harder. It depends on whether you like to think about things."

"That which does not kill me makes me stranger."

"The purpose of most computer languages is to lengthen your resume by a word and a comma."

"There ain't nothin' in this world that's worth being a snot over."

"There are probably better ways to do that, but it would make the parser more complex. I do, occasionally, struggle feebly against complexity..."

"The social dynamics of the net are a direct consequence of the fact that nobody has yet developed a Remote Strangulation Protocol."

"The young think they are immortal, and are determined to prove otherwise."

"To claim any more than that is to invite a religious war, which I ain't. Go thou and don't likewise."

"Winter is worth its wait in cold."

"Yes, you can think of almost everything as a function, but this may upset your wife."

"You can only measure the size of your head from the inside."