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Larry has a consistent philospohy behind the design of Perl (or rather, the intentional lack of overall design.) It's an interesting idea, certainly, and one that I think hasn't been consciously applied to a programming language before. However, if Perl is the kind of language that that approach produces, then I think the experiment is a failure.

While Larry is a smart fellow, the problem is that he is also a linguist. And having spent a few years working with linguists (doing a natural-language understanding boondoggle), my experience is that linguists should never ever be allowed near computers.

Computer languages aren't really languages, not in the sense that linguists know languages. Computer languages are formal mathematical systems, which are a totally different beast. Computers are very literal-minded, not fuzzy at all, so one must talk to them precisely. The fuzziness that appears in human languages is inappropriate in a computer language.

The ``language'' of mathematics doesn't have linguistic drift. Where is the ``slang'' in arithmetic? Where are the ``dialects'' of algebra? It doesn't happen, because mathematical systems exist by design, not by evolutionary pressure and random mutation.

Accretion works well for some things, like DNA, forests, and cities. But I for one am glad that my car's engine was designed to be efficient and self-consistent, and I prefer the software I use (including languages) to be the same, rather than a sprawling Winchester Mystery House of a language like Perl.

Of course, I end up using Perl anyway, because often it's the most convenient tool for the job for any number of not-very-good reasons. The way Perl manages to suck so bad and yet still be marginally useful is probably what makes it the perfect complement to Unix itself. Worse is Better, after all.

Actually, now that I think about it, Tcl is even more horrible than Perl, so it's a wonder it hasn't taken over.

Maximal obscurity! Now!

Larry gave a great talk at Linux World on "Perl, the first postmodern computer language". The transcript is here (51kb) on the wall family website.

Larry gave a great talk at Linux World on "Perl, the first postmodern computer language". The transcript is here (51kb) on the wall family website.

There's a few other texts worth reading from Open Sources too. I would especially like to point out Larry Walls essay which can be found online at http://kiev.wall.org/~larry/onion/onio n.html. Also worth a read are Bruce Perens article, which unfortunately doesn't seem to be reprinted online anywhere.

drat and double drat.

i've long said that Postmodernism was a transitional form. its very name says it is *not* modernism, yet derivative from the modernism *not*.

The obvious truth since the 1920s Dada-movement has been that modernism (aka the enlightment) was dying, and the obvious truth of the 60s was its death. what has followed, postmodernism, is the agent of putrifaction converting the corpse of modernism to into "whatever comes next."


Larry Wall's comments about Perl being a postmodern language are well put and should give pause. the constructive aspect of postmodernism is to produce new things from recycled bits of the old. but in a sense, isn't the earth that is fertilized by the dead fish just that, the recycling bits of the old to create something new like a cornstalk.

the drat and double drat is that Paul Katz has come along to state the obvious and recite the old tired old refrain that "forces of reaction" are out there just waiting to "censor and repress." we are living thru the turn-over of one culture (modernism) to another culture (the one we're inventing right now) its stupid to respond the *new* culture's birth with the weapons and tactics that attended the *old* culture's birth.

Ok, Mr. Katz, what law is the United States Congress going to pass that'll be legally binding to someone in Finland? What ecclesiastical council in the Vatican is going to burn at the stake any neopagan in Massachusetts?

You can't digitize Torquemada. You can only flame idiots. But "you suck" flammage has no credibility. What has credibility is coherent ideas well put that disclose the suckiness of the idiot's ideas.

the exchange of ideas is exactly what we're talking about. What the internet brings to our culture is a denial of the argument of force.

The open exchange of ideas opens the flood gates to a lot of moronic, trite, stereotypical non-thoughts expressed by the likes of Mr. Katz. And the proper response in the internet age (just as in every prior age) is not to censor (for censorship is impossible) but to meet in the arena of ideas and duke it out rhetorically.

The best thoughts will win. We are geeks, as geeks, we use logic every day to do our jobs. Software calls us back from our bigoted opinions to something tangible, something real in the logical structure of whatever is. This day-in-day out exposure to unforgiving logic changes the geek brain, making it more fitted to rational thought.

The english majors can pool their bigotry and use politics to suppress those they find unfashionable, or politically incorrect. The internet gives such arbiters of culture the middle-finger salute and builds on whatever works and jettisons that which does not.

i long for the day the internet jettisons Mr. Katz.