10 ms·
Interview: Larry Wall
- melling 11y agoThis question was submitted 7 hours ago and appears on the front page with 8 points. There must be a way to play with the ranking algorithm.
- idlewords 11y agoPerl script
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- vezzy-fnord 11y agoIt's the mods out with a new feature, see dang's reply here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9864365 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9864365
- melling 11y agoInteresting that 8 points was enough. Well, it's off to the races. People should remember Perl programmers sleep late and live on the West Coast. Nothing before 1pm EST. Let the Perl reminiscing commence. Also, the warning as to why you should never start over. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html
- rrss1122 11y agoI started out learning Perl. This was when 5.10 was the newest version which was pretty much forever ago. I just went to look up Perl 5.10 release notes, and they billed it as "the first major upgrade... in over five years." http://dev.perl.org/perl5/news/2007/perl-5.10.0.html http://dev.perl.org/perl5/news/2007/perl-5.10.0.html I would have loved to keep using Perl in a professional setting but even when I first learned it, it was already forever between two major updates. Perl was fun to use. It's just too bad everyone moved on.
- bwigfield 11y agohttp://www.dagolden.com/index.php/1757/updated-visualizing-perl-5-release-history/ http://www.dagolden.com/index.php/1757/updated-visualizing-p... This have gotten much better and perl 5 has great momentum these days. There was sort of a changing of the guard as a lot of the old guys moved on to perl6 or other things. However nowadays there is lots of fresh blood moving the project alone real nice like.
- greglindahl 11y agoThat was the nadir of perl releases. Starting in 2010, they've released a new major version each year. The first serious perl compiler was just released a week ago: http://rperl.org/ http://rperl.org/ Some people moved on, some people stayed.
- petemc_ 11y agoThere's a reasonable contingent in Japan.
- rurban 11y agoBut they are switching to ruby, go and Java in an alarming rate.
- knarz 11y agoThere is probably a mod on CPAN to gamble HN ratings. :)
- yarou 11y agoLarry Wall is a great guy. Perl brings me back to the days of my Pentium 2, tinkering about with my primitive IRC bots.
- smacktoward 11y agoPerl was what made one my all-time favorite side projects possible. Back around 2000, I was working at a mid-size company that stored tons of data in a company intranet. There was lots of useful stuff locked up in there, but hardly anybody ever used it because the web interface was clunky and slow. One day I had a brainstorm, and after a few evenings' Perl hacking it was up and running -- a conversational interface to the intranet, running over AOL Instant Messenger. You added the bot as a buddy, and then you could query the intranet a bunch of different ways; IM it a client's name, for instance, and it would ping you back with their contact information, who their account reps were, what projects they were associated with, etc. (Which is very useful when your phone rings and it's someone you don't recognize.) Pretty nifty stuff, for the time. Everyone had AIM running all the time anyway, so this turned out to be a big hit -- much bigger than I ever expected. And I probably never would have been able to get it working were it not for the ease of programming in Perl and the ability to tap into CPAN's massive library of code and take advantage of modules like Net::AIM (http://search.cpan.org/~aryeh/Net-AIM-1.22/AIM.pm http://search.cpan.org/~aryeh/Net-AIM-1.22/AIM.pm). So thanks Larry, and thanks to all the Perl folks who contributed to CPAN over the years!
- codeshaman 11y agoI love the shirt he's wearing in those pictures. What is it with geeks and psychedelic/hippie outfits ? Is it because of the patterns and colors, eccentricity or because of real involvement with the counterculture/psychedelia ? It's always fascinated and intrigued me. Any people 'in the know' care to elaborate on that ?
- vezzy-fnord 11y agoIt's Larry Wall. Dressing like a member of the Village People on acid is probably one of the least whimsical things he's done. His State of the Onion addresses all blend surrealism and technicality quite aptly. See his Wikiquote for examples of his humor: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Larry_Wall https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Larry_Wall
- rrauenza 11y agoAnd you should see his socks!
- staunch 11y agoProbably more I-don't-care-what-you-think Unix hacker than psychedelic hippie.
- cpach 11y agoWell he attended UC Berkeley in the 1970s, so it’s safe to assume that he has had lots of exposure to hippie culture. There are actually quite strong connections between computer nerds and the counterculture of the 60s/70s. If you’re curious I recommend the following books: # What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry / John Markoff. A great book with many fascinating characters. # From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism / Fred Turner. Also an interesting read, but much less accessible than Markoff’s book. # The Cuckoo’s Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage / Clifford Stoll. Very good book, reads like a detective novel in a Berkeley setting. PS. More psychedelic shirt goodness this way: https://www.google.com/search?q=larry+wall&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=larry+wall&tbm=isch
- amagumori 11y agoi like the recursive sentence "you could have something that you think of as a noun, but you can verb it"
- mlitchard 11y agoI'm a bear of very little brain, could you explain the recursive properties of this sentence? I don't see them.
- idlewords 11y agoHe uses the noun 'verb' as a verb, demonstrating the process within the explanation itself.
- twerquie 11y agoUsing verb as a verb.
- Agathos 11y agohttp://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1993/01/25 http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1993/01/25
- aheilbut 11y agoIt's self-referencing, but I agree that this is not strictly recursive.
- logicallee 11y agoI had to check the year on the article - "He’s the creator of Perl, a programming language that’s widely regarded as the glue holding the internet together" was arguably true in 1999 - 16 years ago.
- eli 11y agoI get what you're saying, but if Perl magically stopped running today I think there's a legit chance the Internet would cease functioning.
- to3m 11y agoAnd in a printed magazine as well...
- davidgerard 11y agoThink of it as the COBOL of the Internet. Nobody wants to think about it, but it sustains so much.
- visarga 11y agoAnd by nobody we mean still lots of people who use it and love it. I know I am not alone.
- 11y ago
- mempko 11y agoI started learning perl 6 to prototype creating a DSL. Holy fucking shit perl grammars and actions are cool.
- agumonkey 11y agoThey are, I can't find Damien Conway's talk from a few years ago, the whole thing seemed so clean and capable. I hope these guys keep trying new things even if it looks like vaporware from a distance.
- eliben 11y agoYes, but... Perl's greatest criticism is that it's friggin' unreadable, especially when written by less-than-stellar coders. It's my impression from a skim of Perl 6 that due to a bunch of fairly intricate features added there, it will be come even less readable than Perl 5. Is that a mistaken assessment?
- esaym 11y agoI used to have trouble reading the Perl5 code I would write a few weeks later. But these were small scripts I'd write and a month or two would go by before I'd right another one. The issue was I didn't fully know the language. Having spent a few years in Perl 5 now, I no longer have this issue. But the Ruby 1.8 code I wrote 5 years ago I can no longer read, I seem to have forgotten it. I never have been able to read Python, I don't know it either (though I do from time to time dig through their std lib and port some stuff into my modules I author :). The point is, you can't read a language that you don't know, this is such an old argument. And saying "you can read a language if you don't know it if it is easy enough/designed right", is just well... just keep me away from those languages... Reminds me of a 70 year old retired EE friend of mine. He still buys only chips that come with Basic onboard stating "its so simple, I could never learn any of this new languages", yet what takes him a page of basic, I can do in one line in any modern one... The point is simplicity is just one trait out of many, you can't hang everything on it.
- aidenn0 11y ago
- spenczar5 11y ago> Up until now, the Python community has done a much better job of getting into the lower levels of education than we have. We’d like to do something in that space too, and that’s partly why we have the butterfly logo, because it’s going to be appealing to seven year old girls! Heh, I can't tell whether or not he's kidding.
- morbius 11y agoPerhaps a bit of both. Regardless, Larry's intentions are good and he's an angel -- which is rare among programmers. Many (like Linus, RMS, DHH) are almost sociopathic in how they view others' work and treat the people they work with, so it's very refreshing to see someone that's not only passionate about his work, but gentle and kind as well.
- tomphoolery 11y agoI'm such a fan of how Larry Wall speaks and writes, it's filled with a million little tangents that are stories of their own, but everything relates to the same thing of course. His BigThink videos are entertaining and enlightening. I've always respected Larry, even though Perl was sort-of "before my time" and I never got to write much in his language. But the fact that I mostly have written in languages (for server-side web development) that have been influenced by Perl makes me feel like I understand what he was going for.
- ryanmarsh 11y agoPerl was the second programming language I learned. Teenage me idolized Larry and his hippie wisdom. "... the three great virtues of a programmer: laziness, impatience, and hubris." — Larry Wall
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- mirceal 11y agothe man is a legend. Perl was awesome when it first came out. Its time has passed but you can see Perl's influence in many things we use and take for granted today. favorite writing: http://www.wall.org/~larry/pm.html http://www.wall.org/~larry/pm.html
- tootie 11y agoThe first time I saw "use strict"; at the top of a JavaScript file, I wiped a little tear for Larry Wall.
- rrauenza 11y agoI was there when he gave that talk in San Jose ... it caught me off guard and made me laugh because he outted how my wife and I met. I'd been intentionally vague with friends, family, and co-workers until then.
- elchief 11y agoWould I be nuts to pick perl over python as my main scripting/server admin language? I am a postgres, openbsd, data/text processing guy. OpenBSD is 40% perl. Postgres uses perl for its builds. Perl seems to have better text processing capabilities. But it seems to be dying out compared to python.
- eCa 11y agoNo. Pick the one most suited to your brain/task.
- colechristensen 11y agoYou would be reasonable. Perl often fits in better with the 'advanced shell scripting' type of work than Python or Ruby. It has more libraries for unix-like admin tasks, but less common support for external APIs (which more commonly support Java/Ruby/Python/etc.) so it may be an uphill battle if you use a _lot_ of external APIs. Perl won't ever 'die out', especially if you write good perl that doesn't depend on flashy popularity-train things. It's far too ingrained in many unix derivatives. If you're a server admin, you're missing out if you don't know perl. Choosing perl might be a little less common today, but it's totally reasonable if you want it.
- Diederich 11y ago> but less common support for external APIs (which more commonly support Java/Ruby/Python/etc.) Yesterday, there were an even 60 CPAN module releases, and that is a pretty typical day. Most of them weren't NEW modules, but some were. It's true that you don't as often see Perl APIs released along with the various 'external API' things, but, as someone who probably spends too much time tracking the various new hot things, Perl API support is first rate. It's damn rare that I don't see a Perl API for something, even if it's relatively new. I'be been watching CPAN for a long, long time, and I will say that it's more vibrant and active now than I have ever seen it.
- merrilymeredith 11y agoThey're both very easy, fun languages, and decent fluency in one will give you a good foundation to get into the other. And going beyond roll-your-own server admin stuff, I do enjoy both Rex (perl) and Ansible (python). I don't have an off-the-cuff rec for a python book, but Modern Perl (2014) by chromatic is available online, isn't very long, and should give you a chance to test the waters and decide if that's the way you'd like to go.
- doug1001 11y agoprodigious intellect and a childhood hero of mine. Unfortunately his contribution to web design rarely gets mentioned (http://www.wall.org/~larry/); http://www.wall.org/~larry/); no bootstrap--incredible.
- runewell 11y agoI miss Perl. It was the first programming language I learned as a kid. I read the entire Perl for dummies book when I was 14 and uploaded my first script to a "cgi-bin" shortly after. Thanks Larry for your contributions!
- eCa 11y agoIf you want to make a web app with modern Perl practices, check out Mojolicious[1] or Dancer[2]. [1] https://metacpan.org/release/Mojolicious https://metacpan.org/release/Mojolicious [2] https://metacpan.org/release/Dancer https://metacpan.org/release/Dancer
- cag_ii 11y agoSlightly off topic, but has there been any "State on the Onion" updates since 2007[0]? I always looked forward to reading these and was surprised to find nothing new since I last checked some years ago. [0] http://www.perl.com/pub/2007/12/06/soto-11.html http://www.perl.com/pub/2007/12/06/soto-11.html
- nnutter 11y agoA recent post that seems relevant, http://shadow.cat/blog/matt-s-trout/sotv-vi/ http://shadow.cat/blog/matt-s-trout/sotv-vi/
- combl 11y agoAlways a pleasure to see Larry.
- esaym 11y agoIf anyone cares there was a recorded Larry Wall Q&A session at YAPC a month ago: https://youtu.be/PK9UnAmrxsA?t=12m40s https://youtu.be/PK9UnAmrxsA?t=12m40s
- rmchugh 11y agothe linux voice interviews are in general really good. keep up the good work!
- mksaunders 11y agoThanks :-) Glad you enjoyed it.
- doomrobo 11y ago>you have a lot of instances of shoving one word into a different slot...you could have something that you think of as a noun, but you can verb it Oh, Larry
- kriro 11y agoPerl will always have a soft spot in my heart. I remember accidentally putting down the Llama book on a stove top, still have that half burned book. Only non-trivial thing I ever wrote in Perl was the obligatory irc bot :) Spaceship operator...says it all imo Those were different days. I got the O'Reilly catalog at a book store regularly and marveled at the possibilities and cool books because I didn't have reliable Internet.
- kluck 11y agoI will never give up on Perl. There are just a whole lot of really talented people involved ;)
- vijucat 11y agoWhile building perl6, you see "-Larry -Wall" as part of the gcc args, which I thought was a clever + syntactically correct joke :-)
- Fede_V 11y agoI have a very charming Larry Wall story. He came to give a seminar to the research center where I was working, and gave a fantastic talk on Perl 6. Late in the evening, I ran into him and his wife on the bus when getting home from work - and started talking to them. Apparently, nobody from the department had arranged to take them out for dinner, so we ended up going out for dinner together, where we had a fantastic discussion covering religion, tolerance, and lots of other topics. I am a staunch materialist and atheist, while both the Walls are serious committed Christians, but we had a really pleasant discussion on religion and the nature of evidence. I ended up giving his wife a copy of Hume's Dialogue on Natural Religion, and they were kind enough to sign a copy of the Camel book for a friend who is a huge Perl fan. A lot of people know Larry by reputation - but his wife Gloria is just as smart and kind. It was a bit of a strange evening, but it was a rare privilege to meet two such interesting people.
- catwell 11y agoLike several others in this thread, Perl was my first "real" language after POSIX Shell (I started by reading and modifying the early Frozen Bubble sources), and Programming Perl was my first programming book. That kind of introduction to programming may not be for everyone, but I believe it was instrumental in me making software my career. I had the privilege to be in the room at FOSDEM when Larry announced Perl 6 for this Christmas. I don't write much Perl those days, but I certainly am going to play with Perl 6. Even if I never write anything useful in it, there are certainly lots of ideas to be taken from that language.