4 ms·

Arguably not original UNIX but: Practical Extraction and Reporting Language, aka Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister aka `perl`

by biztos 8y ago

chrisfinazzo 8y ago
Which reminds me of my favorite one... If Perl programs (executables, whatever you call them) are called "modules", why is the main place people download them from called CPAN? It's completely illogical. C = Comprehensive (It's not, it definitely does not contain all possible modules) P = Perl (This is only one that makes sense) A = Archive (If the things people create are called modules - .pm files, really - what makes this an archive? A collection of things? That's a weak leg to stand on. Yes, distributions formalizes this, but modules seems to be the common nomenclature. N = Network (How is this a network? I think Wall - or later, Hietaniemi - just wanted people to think it was big and important in the early days) This is all absurd and slightly sarcastic, but I finally got to write it down somewhere :)
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- svat 8y ago
  CPAN was named after (in imitation of) CTAN, the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network. CTAN was named by George Greenwade — the idea was to bring together (network) various TeX archives that various people had collected. See: • https://www.cpan.org/authors/id/H/HF/HFB/grok-cpan-1.01.pdf https://www.cpan.org/authors/id/H/HF/HFB/grok-cpan-1.01.pdf (page 3) • https://ctan.org/ctan/?lang=en https://ctan.org/ctan/?lang=en or http://dante.ctan.org/what_is_ctan.html http://dante.ctan.org/what_is_ctan.html
  - chrisfinazzo 8y ago
    Imitation, flattery etc, etc. As I said before, take this with a dose of sarcasm :)
- peterwwillis 8y ago
  Comprehensive does not mean "all possible items". The archive is the collection of archive files which contains a combination of software libraries, documentation, programs, tests, and metadata. It also includes manifests, checksums and other data useful for the CPAN program. The network is a collection of 250+ mirrors of the archives.
  - chrisfinazzo 8y ago
    I hate to do this, but... Well, actually... https://www.google.com/search?q=comprehensive&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari&dlnr=1&sei=l3AmW7--GcPnswGd-ryQBw https://www.google.com/search?q=comprehensive&ie=UTF-8&oe=UT... On a more serious note, while I was not aware of how extensively mirrored CPAN is, there is something to be said for it being the canonical source.
    - peterwwillis 8y ago
      Ok, I'll grant you "all" is in the defintion, but so is "nearly all". Comprehensive is often used with a modifier to denote that it doesn't cover all possibilities. It also is applied to subjects that can't include all possibilities, or where they can't reasonably be known. Its root word compréhensif also hints at the subject covering many areas, but not all of them; a thorough understanding. CPAN covers nearly all Perl libraries, and also covers nearly all categories of modules, as they are organized into a hierarchy based on topic, and the modules' naming naturally falls into a hierarchy as well. It's easy to find a module even without a search engine, and thus easy to find out whether you need to make one or whether one already exists. The result is a comprehensive archive of libraries.
- gpvos 8y ago
  There are multiple CPAN sites, which rsync from each other in a hierarchical way, so "network" is quite appropriate. And they retain all previous versions, so they're an archive. Also, the intention was for it to contain all published modules, and it has indeed grown to be, I think, the largest repository of modules for any language. Comprehensive does not mean complete.
- gbacon 8y ago
  Perl programs are not necessarily modules. Perl modules can be written to function as programs, a technique known as modulinos[0], but it is not a common approach. [0]: https://www.masteringperl.org/category/chapters/modulinos/ https://www.masteringperl.org/category/chapters/modulinos/
jwilk 8y ago
They are mentioned in the article. Both of them are backronyms, though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perl#Name https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perl#Name
- gbacon 8y ago
  There are a few accounts of how Perl got its name. Larry himself said this in a State of the Onion talk. https://www.perl.com/pub/2005/09/22/onion.html/ https://www.perl.com/pub/2005/09/22/onion.html/ > You might say that Perl grew out of the Cold War. I’ve often told the story about how Perl was invented at a secret lab that was working on a secret NSA project, so I won’t repeat that here, since it’s no secret. Some of you have heard the part about my looking for a good name for Perl, and scanning through /usr/dict/words for every three- and four-letter word with positive connotations. Though offhand, I can’t explain how I missed seeing Ruby. So anyway, I ended up with “Pearl” instead. A Wired piece gives a deeper look. https://www.wired.com/2000/10/cruise/?pg=3 https://www.wired.com/2000/10/cruise/?pg=3 > “Perl” is usually glossed as “Practical Extraction and Report Language,” and occasionally as “Pathetically Eclectic Rubbish Lister.” Both are retronyms. Originally, Larry wanted to name his new language Pearl, a word with positive connotations. Larry considers himself as much a linguist as a hacker. He’s also a fan of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. There are doorways into Tolkien’s imagination built right into the core of Perl. Each section of the source code begins with a quote from the Rings trilogy – say, “A fair jaw-cracker dwarf language must be.” If you understand the epigram, you comprehend what that section is designed to do. Larry wanted to give Perl a name that suggested that it was worth treasuring. > Furthermore, Larry is a devout Christian – he’s the son of a fundamentalist Mennonite preacher from a long line of preachers. In the 13th book of Matthew, Jesus tells the parable of a merchant “seeking goodly pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it” – “it” being the Kingdom of Heaven. But there was already another programming language called Pearl. So Larry – whose personal motto, which has become the mantra of the Perl community, is “There’s more than one way to do it” – christened his new creation Perl.

Arguably not original UNIX but: Practical Extraction and Reporting Language, aka Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister aka `perl`

by biztos 8y ago

Arguably not original UNIX but: Practical Extraction and Reporting Language, aka Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister aka `perl`

chrisfinazzo 8y ago

Which reminds me of my favorite one... If Perl programs (executables, whatever you call them) are called "modules", why is the main place people download them from called CPAN? It's completely illogical. C = Comprehensive (It's not, it definitely does not contain all possible modules) P = Perl (This is only one that makes sense) A = Archive (If the things people create are called modules - .pm files, really - what makes this an archive? A collection of things? That's a weak leg to stand on. Yes, distributions formalizes this, but modules seems to be the common nomenclature. N = Network (How is this a network? I think Wall - or later, Hietaniemi - just wanted people to think it was big and important in the early days) This is all absurd and slightly sarcastic, but I finally got to write it down somewhere :)

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
svat 8y ago
CPAN was named after (in imitation of) CTAN, the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network. CTAN was named by George Greenwade — the idea was to bring together (network) various TeX archives that various people had collected. See: • https://www.cpan.org/authors/id/H/HF/HFB/grok-cpan-1.01.pdf https://www.cpan.org/authors/id/H/HF/HFB/grok-cpan-1.01.pdf (page 3) • https://ctan.org/ctan/?lang=en https://ctan.org/ctan/?lang=en or http://dante.ctan.org/what_is_ctan.html http://dante.ctan.org/what_is_ctan.html
- chrisfinazzo 8y ago
  Imitation, flattery etc, etc. As I said before, take this with a dose of sarcasm :)
peterwwillis 8y ago
Comprehensive does not mean "all possible items". The archive is the collection of archive files which contains a combination of software libraries, documentation, programs, tests, and metadata. It also includes manifests, checksums and other data useful for the CPAN program. The network is a collection of 250+ mirrors of the archives.
- chrisfinazzo 8y ago
  I hate to do this, but... Well, actually... https://www.google.com/search?q=comprehensive&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari&dlnr=1&sei=l3AmW7--GcPnswGd-ryQBw https://www.google.com/search?q=comprehensive&ie=UTF-8&oe=UT... On a more serious note, while I was not aware of how extensively mirrored CPAN is, there is something to be said for it being the canonical source.
  - peterwwillis 8y ago
    Ok, I'll grant you "all" is in the defintion, but so is "nearly all". Comprehensive is often used with a modifier to denote that it doesn't cover all possibilities. It also is applied to subjects that can't include all possibilities, or where they can't reasonably be known. Its root word compréhensif also hints at the subject covering many areas, but not all of them; a thorough understanding. CPAN covers nearly all Perl libraries, and also covers nearly all categories of modules, as they are organized into a hierarchy based on topic, and the modules' naming naturally falls into a hierarchy as well. It's easy to find a module even without a search engine, and thus easy to find out whether you need to make one or whether one already exists. The result is a comprehensive archive of libraries.
gpvos 8y ago
There are multiple CPAN sites, which rsync from each other in a hierarchical way, so "network" is quite appropriate. And they retain all previous versions, so they're an archive. Also, the intention was for it to contain all published modules, and it has indeed grown to be, I think, the largest repository of modules for any language. Comprehensive does not mean complete.
gbacon 8y ago
Perl programs are not necessarily modules. Perl modules can be written to function as programs, a technique known as modulinos[0], but it is not a common approach. [0]: https://www.masteringperl.org/category/chapters/modulinos/ https://www.masteringperl.org/category/chapters/modulinos/

jwilk 8y ago

They are mentioned in the article. Both of them are backronyms, though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perl#Name https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perl#Name

gbacon 8y ago
There are a few accounts of how Perl got its name. Larry himself said this in a State of the Onion talk. https://www.perl.com/pub/2005/09/22/onion.html/ https://www.perl.com/pub/2005/09/22/onion.html/ > You might say that Perl grew out of the Cold War. I’ve often told the story about how Perl was invented at a secret lab that was working on a secret NSA project, so I won’t repeat that here, since it’s no secret. Some of you have heard the part about my looking for a good name for Perl, and scanning through /usr/dict/words for every three- and four-letter word with positive connotations. Though offhand, I can’t explain how I missed seeing Ruby. So anyway, I ended up with “Pearl” instead. A Wired piece gives a deeper look. https://www.wired.com/2000/10/cruise/?pg=3 https://www.wired.com/2000/10/cruise/?pg=3 > “Perl” is usually glossed as “Practical Extraction and Report Language,” and occasionally as “Pathetically Eclectic Rubbish Lister.” Both are retronyms. Originally, Larry wanted to name his new language Pearl, a word with positive connotations. Larry considers himself as much a linguist as a hacker. He’s also a fan of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. There are doorways into Tolkien’s imagination built right into the core of Perl. Each section of the source code begins with a quote from the Rings trilogy – say, “A fair jaw-cracker dwarf language must be.” If you understand the epigram, you comprehend what that section is designed to do. Larry wanted to give Perl a name that suggested that it was worth treasuring. > Furthermore, Larry is a devout Christian – he’s the son of a fundamentalist Mennonite preacher from a long line of preachers. In the 13th book of Matthew, Jesus tells the parable of a merchant “seeking goodly pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it” – “it” being the Kingdom of Heaven. But there was already another programming language called Pearl. So Larry – whose personal motto, which has become the mantra of the Perl community, is “There’s more than one way to do it” – christened his new creation Perl.