Skip to content

Computer Quote by Larry Wall

“Guilty as charged. Perl is happily ugly, and happily derivative.” quote by Larry Wall — Download Open image

“Guilty as charged. Perl is happily ugly, and happily derivative.”

About This Quote

Source Interview: Perl creator Larry Wall, 1994

Perl embraces its messy, derivative nature, celebrating imperfection as a design choice.

In simple terms: Perl is intentionally messy and derivative.

Key Takeaway

Accept and work with imperfection.

Themes

programming creativity acceptance

Mood

playful defiant

Type

technical philosophical

When to use this quote

software development
open source projects
learning programming

Key Concepts

software design language philosophy

Questions to Reflect On

How does embracing mess affect code quality?
Can intentional ugliness improve flexibility?

A Different Perspective

Complexity can hinder maintainability.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 3.5 out of 5 (6 ratings)

Charged Perl Computer Derivatives Guilty Happily Derivative Happily Ugly Perl Perl Happily Python Ugly Ugly Happily

More by Larry Wall

Not that I have anything much against redundancy. But I said that already.

Image

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

Image

Take Lisp, you know its the most beautiful language in the world -- at least up until Haskell came along.

Image

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?

Image

Yes, but I did manage to increase the amount of virginity in the world by that method.

Image

I won't mention any names, because I don't want to get sun4's into trouble.

Image

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…

Image

In general, they do what you want, unless you want consistency.

Image

I suppose you could switch grammars once you've seen 'use strict subs'.

Image

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…

Image

All language designers are arrogant. Goes with the territory...

Image

Perl has a long tradition of working around compilers.

Image

Explore all 226 Larry Wall quotes

More Computer quotes

Issac:"I dislike living in a world without Augustus Waters." Computer: "I don't understand-" Issac: "Me neither. Pause

Image

If you stood me in a costume next to a computer graphic of the same-looking character, I think there would be a difference. And…

Image

The display is the computer.

Image

It's interesting that the greatest minds of computer science, the founding fathers, like Alan Turing and Claude Shannon and Norbert Wiener, they all looked…

Image

One of our big goals in search is to make search that really understands exactly what you want, understands everything in the world. As…

Image

We are beginning to see intimations of this in the implantation of computer devices into the human body.

Image

I'm from the South, so I'm very old-fashioned and I'm not very computer savvy at all, but I'm getting it. I understand that, if…

Image

“To all the secret writers, late-night painters, would-be singers, lapsed and scared artists of every stripe, dig out your paintbrush, or your flute, or…

Shauna Niequist

Image

A little bit more than 50% of what you see on screen is handcrafted and the other 50% was about emulating these textures on…

Image

Well I'm trying to think what I put in... I think I put in 'why?' to see if I'd confuse the computer.

Karl Pilkington

Image

Our brains are great at knowing what to forget. We actually have to teach computers to do the same.

Image

Nor would anybody suspect. If was one thing all people took for granted, was conviction that if you feed honest figures into a computer,…

Robert A. Heinlein

Image

Browse all 3,925 Computer quotes