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About this quote

What does it mean?
People always want the colon character in language design.
In plain terms
The colon is a popular feature.
What can you take from it?
Designers should be aware of the colon's appeal.

Where it applies

  • language specification
  • feature voting

Putting it to work

  • consider colon usage in new languages

Questions to consider

  • Why is the colon so attractive?
  • When should a colon be avoided?

Another view

Not every language benefits from a colon.

More from Larry Wall

  1. There's really no way to fix this and still keep Perl pathologically eclectic.

    Permalink to quote #290
  2. Larry's 2nd Law of Language Redesign: Larry gets the colon.

    Permalink to quote #292
  3. The problem with being consistent is that there are lots of ways to be consistent, and they're all inconsistent with each other.

    Permalink to quote #289

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