So far we've managed to avoid turning Perl into APL. :-)
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- The author notes that Perl has avoided becoming as terse and symbolic as APL.
- In plain terms
- They've kept Perl from turning into APL.
- What can you take from it?
- Maintain readability over extreme conciseness.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- When is brevity more valuable than readability?
- How does syntax affect learning?
Another view
Some domains benefit from dense, symbolic notation.
More from Larry Wall
If you write something wrong enough, I'll be glad to make up a new witticism just for you.
Permalink to quote #71 Not that I have anything much against redundancy. But I said that already.
Permalink to quote #73 I don't like this official/unofficial distinction. It sound, er, officious.
Permalink to quote #70
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In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages.
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