Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
People agree that compromise is needed, but they disagree on when it should happen.
In plain terms
We all think compromise matters, yet we clash on the timing.
What can you take from it?
Discuss and set clear criteria before deciding to compromise.

Where it applies

  • team meetings
  • political negotiations

Putting it to work

  • establish thresholds
  • use decision frameworks

Questions to consider

  • When is compromise truly beneficial?
  • How can we align on timing?

Another view

What is necessary be seen as a compromise can be subjective and shift over time.

More from Larry Wall

  1. There are many times when you want it to ignore the rest of the string just like atof() does. Oddly enough, Perl calls atof(). How convenient. :-)

    Permalink to quote #42
  2. ... an initial underscore already conveys strong feelings of magicalness to a C programmer.

    Permalink to quote #44
  3. Sorry. My testing organization is either too small, or too large, depending on how you look at it. :-)

    Permalink to quote #41

Related quotes

  1. I don't give advice. I can't tell anybody what to do. Instead I say this is what we know about this problem at this time. And here are the consequences of thes…

    Dr. Joyce BrothersDr. Joyce Brothers quote #3
  2. Instead of looking on discussion as a stumbling block in the way of action, we think it an indispensable preliminary to any wise action at all.

    PericlesPericles quote #9
  3. In a political struggle, never get personal - else the dagger digs too deep.

    Jack ValentiJack Valenti quote #14