> (It's sorta like sed, but not. It's sorta like awk, but not. etc.) Guilty as charged. Perl is happily ugly, and happily derivative.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Perl is intentionally ugly and derivative, borrowing traits from tools like sed and awk.
- In plain terms
- Perl embraces ugliness and borrowing from other utilities.
- What can you take from it?
- Accept Perl's eclectic nature and use it where its strengths fit.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Why value ugliness in a language?
- How does borrowing affect maintainability?
Another view
Being derivative can limit innovation in language evolution.
More from Larry Wall
If you want to see useful Perl examples, we can certainly arrange to have comp.lang.misc flooded with them, but I don't think that would help the advance of ci…
Permalink to quote #50 Just don't compare it with a real language, or you'll be unhappy... :-)
Permalink to quote #52 Lispers are among the best grads of the Sweep-It-Under-Someone-Else's-Carpet School of Simulated Simplicity. [Was that sufficiently incendiary? :-)]
Permalink to quote #53
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