37 Larry Wall Quotes on Communication

Larry Wall quotes on communication

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

8. (To someone at New York University) If you consistently take an antagonistic approach, however, people are going to start thinking you're from New York. :-)

18. Let us be charitable, and call it a misleading feature :-)

24. There are still some other things to do, so don't think if I didn't fix your favorite bug that your bug report is in the bit bucket. (It may be, but don't think it. :-)

36. I won't mention any names, because I don't want to get sun4's into trouble... :-)

39. No, I'm not going to explain it. If you can't figure it out, you didn't want to know anyway... :-)

43. We all agree on the necessity of compromise. We just can't agree on when it's necessary to compromise.

47. But you have to allow a little for the desire to evangelize when you think you have good news.

63. I don't like your I-can-use-anything-as-an-adjective attitude.

68. Odd that we think definitions are definitive. :-)

70. I don't like this official/unofficial distinction. It sound, er, officious.

73. Not that I have anything much against redundancy. But I said that already.

75. I'd put my money where my mouth is, but my mouth keeps moving.

87. You can prove anything by mentioning another computer language. :-)

88. I think you didn't get a reply because you used the terms 'correct' and 'proper', neither of which has much meaning in Perl culture. :-)

99. The following two statements are usually both true: There's not enough documentation. There's too much documentation.

108. Oh, get ahold of yourself. Nobody's proposing that we parse English.

123. Oh, wait, that was Randal...nevermind...

138. I think that's easier to read. Pardon me. Less difficult to read.

144. That should probably be written: no !@#$%^&*:@!semicolon

148. Not that I'm against sneaking some notions into people's heads upon occasion. (Or blasting them in outright.)

157. People who understand context would be steamed to have someone else dictating how they can call it.

158. For the sake of argument I'll ignore all your fighting words.

169. (Never thought I'd be telling Malcolm and Ilya the same thing... :-)

176. Reserve your abuse for your true friends.

186. That's a valid argument. I just don't think it's valid enough. :-)

208. : What do people think? What, do people think? :-)

214. That which hits the fan tends to get flung in all directions.

218. In Clintonese, that would be 'You are free to infer that I was saying that.' :-)

223. Must be a different Larry Wall. There are at least 137 of us in the U.S.

228. It should be illegal to yell 'Y2K' in a crowded economy. :-)

229. One thing I do understand is that people get scared when I start thinking out loud. :-)

230. : No comment, since this is still hovering (see Larry's reply). Flutter, flutter.

236. double value; /* or your money back! */ short changed; /* so triple your money back! */

257. Your csh still thinks true is false. Write to your vendor today and tell them that next year Configure ought to 'rm /bin/csh' unless they fix their blasted shell. :-)

277. But I'm not here to talk about postmodernism. I tried to do that last spring, and afterwards I was thoroughly deconstructed by the deconstructionists for attempting to deconstruct deconstructionism. At least, that's the construction I put on their construction of it. I was talking about postmodern culture, and they thought I was talking about postmodern literature. Not at all the same thing!

297. I'll say it again for the logic impaired.