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About this quote

What does it mean?
Wall jokes that he sometimes dreams in Perl.
In plain terms
He humorously claims his dreams are written in Perl code.
What can you take from it?
Passion for a language can permeate even subconscious thoughts.

Where it applies

  • thinking about code while sleeping
  • feeling immersed in a programming community

Putting it to work

  • embrace language quirks
  • share fun anecdotes

Questions to consider

  • What does it mean to ‘dream’ in a programming language?
  • How does language love affect productivity?

Another view

Literal dreaming in code is impossible; it's a playful exaggeration.

More from Larry Wall

  1. I don't know if it's what you want, but it's what you get. :-)

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  2. Piet van Oostrum: I find this a nice feature but it is not according to the documentation. Or is it a BUG? Larry Wall: Let's call it an accidental feature. :-)

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  3. Chip Salzenberg sent me a complete patch to add System V IPC (msg, sem and shm calls), so I added them. If that bothers you, you can always undefine them in co…

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