Larry Wall On Perl, Religion, and...

Not only did Larry Wall answer your questions, but he said they were excellent questions. You've got to love Larry Wall, not just because he's a nice guy and created Perl, but also because he is the first Slashdot interview guest ever to send his answers preformatted in squeaky-clean HTML. We appreciate this like you wouldn't believe. They're great answers, too -- straightforward, heartfelt, and entertaining. Enjoy! 1) Perl as a "scripting" or a "programming" language
by Marx_Mrvelous

I've been using perl for a very long time, but primarily as a scripting language. I indeed mostly use it for extraction and reporting. With the recent developments in perl, however, there seems to be the trend that perl is able to do much, much more (while retaining compatibility to be "just" a scripting language).

What do you think about how people are using Perl today? Are you satisfied that most people use it for simple tasks like log parsing? Would you like to see more advanced applications being built with Perl verses a compiled language?

A:

I am perfectly happy for Perl to continue parsing logfiles. Perl has always been, and always will be (I hope), a humble language. When I am 80 years old, even if everyone in the whole world puts me on a pedestal and thinks I'm the renaissanciest man that ever lived, I still intend to take out the trash when my wife asks me to. Just because I'm learning Japanese doesn't mean I have to stop speaking English.

But just as people grow (and are stretched), Perl continues to grow (and be stretched). Perl has acquired new skills over the years, and people have been using Perl to do all sorts of things that are arguably at the limits of its capabiliites. The solution to that is not to stop people from doing that, but to increase Perl's dynamic range.

The thing is, people are already building more advanced applications with Perl. But there are some aspects of that process that aren't as easy as they could be. They're hard. In times past we were proud of the fact that the hard things were even possible with Perl5. We often chant the slogan: "Easy things should be easy, and hard things should be possible."

But as with any slogan, there are some qustionable assumptions hidden behind the sentiment. We assume that it's obvious which things should be easy or hard, and that the things that are currently easy are the things that ought to be easy. We assume that making the hard things easy will necessarily cause the easy things to become hard. But sometimes it's not obvious what should be easy or hard. Sometimes the wrong things are easy. And sometimes there are ways to make the hard things easier without making the easy things harder.

Some of the complexity in a Perl5 program is necessary to the solution, and some of it isn't. We can't eliminate the necessary complexity, but we can hope to get rid of some of the needless complexity. That will make everything easier. Well, most everything...

I'm really under no illusions that we can make everything easier at once. There's no such thing as a perfect language. Merely making a more expressive language means it's in some sense more difficult to learn to express yourself responsibly. That's the price of power. Manhattan will always be more difficult to understand than a set of beads.

But in any event, let me assure you that Perl6 will not be as difficult to learn as Japanese. :-)

2) Perl Beginners
by KoopaTroopa

I'm a CS student who's recently become very interested in Perl along with other languages. However, I don't really have too much everyday (or even occasional) need to actually USE much Perl. I am big into learning as much as I can about it for its own sake.

Now, for the question: Given this approach to learning Perl (just for a general working knowledge, maybe light usage,) is it really worth spending a lot of my time learning Perl now, or should I wait for the big Perl6 revision?

A:

I don't think you would be damaged by learning Perl5, though I'm sure there are those who would disagree--or at least choose to be disagreeable.

It really depends on your curiosity level, I think. Some people would learn both Perl5 and Perl6 merely to see how a language design evolves over time. Those folks are pretty hardcore. Count yourself lucky if you're not one of them. But despite appearances, Perl5 isn't a totally horrible language, and we're hoping to save all the good bits of it in Perl6. People moving from Perl5 to Perl6 shouldn't find it too difficult to unlearn the naughty bits, especially since it's the naughty bits that tend to be frustrating. And if you're ever in a situation where you need to use Perl6 for real, it's likely you'll have to deal with legacy Perl5 code anyway. So as usual the answer is: "It depends..."

Gildor was silent for a moment. 'I do not like this news,' he said at last. 'That Gandalf should be late, does not bode well. But it is said: Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger. The choice is yours: to go or wait.'

'And it is also said,' answered Frodo: 'Go not to the Elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes.'

'Is it indeed?' laughed Gildor. 'Elves seldom give unguarded advice, for advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill. But what would you? You have not told me all concerning yourself; and how then shall I choose better than you? But if you demand advice, I will for friendship's sake give it. I think you should now go at once, without delay; and if Gandalf does not come before you set out, then I also advise this: do not go alone. Take such friends as are trusty and willing. Now you should be grateful, for I do not give this counsel gladly.'

3) Structured programming and perl
by slashnot007

The reason I like perl is it is not a structured programming language. In my work I find it is 50% a get the job done parsing language and 25% sequencer of programs and deamons and 25% major ojbect oriented programming effort often a cgi.

Thus I worry that perl has Python-envy. I've tried to use python several times but always go back to perl. The reason is my daily need for a parser dominates my choice of language and maintains my fluency, since I dont want to have to be fluent in both, perl becomes my language of choice for advanced tasks too, even though python might be better for strcutrued programming.

So my question is, is perl6 making make perl a structued language like python? Would it be a good idea if perl did not develop any further for fear of becoming too complicated and thus disorganized? (witness the evolution of java from clean slate to giant mess with intricate redundant libraries half of which are deprecated).

A:

Er, what do you mean by "structured"? 25 years ago all of these languages would have been considered "structured", in the sense that a block generally has only one entrance point. (There were also people who thought that a block should only have one exit. Thankfully these folks did not prevail, since functions representing decision trees often have one entry but multiple exit points.)

But you obviously mean "structured" in a different sense, or perhaps several different senses. Syntax is structure, and different languages have different syntax, but I don't think that's what you mean.

I'll assume you mean "structured" the way a grade school teacher means it, as in "structured play time", as opposed to "free play time". Python's slogan is "There's only one obvious way to do it." That's fine from the computer's viewpoint, but kinda sucks from the human viewpoint. "You can play any game you like, as long as it was organized by the teacher."

Java was, in that sense, much less structured than Python, I think. That's part of the reason for Java's success, but it came at a price. One of the problems with Java is that they swept a bit too much of the innate complexity of life under the carpet of the libraries. And so now they've had to replace the carpets several times.

So, yes, Java started with a "clean slate", but it was a rather undersized slate, methinks. But as for "structured play time" in Java, the structure has been imposed more by cultural norms than by the language itself.

As for Perl, it has never been "structured" in that sense, though it has always been structured in the sense that you can create as much structure as you like. The whole point is that the structure is optional, not imposed externally. If you're playing with your schoolmates at recess, you can always choose to organize a football game, but the teacher isn't making you do that.

Playing football is like programming in the large. You have to agree on a lot of rules to do it with other people. Perl5 doesn't make it terribly easy to agree on a set of rules, and we hope to make that easier in Perl6. You have to have discipline to do programming in the large, but you'll choose the discipline by turning up the big discipline knob yourself, not by having someone else turn it up for you. Perl6 will give you the big knob.

I am philosophically opposed to turning up the knob for you, because I don't know how fast you want it turned up. (Perl6 will turn it up for you a little by default--if you write a module or class, it'll automatically default to a stricter mode than it uses for your main program.) But the reason I don't like doing it for you is that you know how fast you want to learn, and I don't. As Gildor says, you haven't told me enough about yourself for me to give you advice. If I don't know how hard you can paddle, I can't tell you how big of a wave to try to catch. We all have to start with the small waves.

We find the same problem in teaching reading to kids. Some people shout "Whole language!" while others shout "Phonics!" Well, guess what, they're both oversimplifying. You have to learn some phonics, and then you learn some larger bits based on that, and some larger bits based on that, and eventually you find that you're intuiting whole language. The whole language folks fall into what I call the "Expert Fallacy". You look at how experts do something, and assume that's how everyone should do it. There are some people who are natural readers. They naturally figure out the bits and pieces themselves. But if you try and teach everyone that way, half your kids never figure out the phonics.

Programming is the same way. Language designers tend to look at how experts program and then think that everyone ought to learn to program that way from the start. That's a bit like expecting a new surfer to do well on 40 foot waves. Some will make it, but most will wipe out.

Perl is designed to help people learn the bits of programming they need right now without forcing them to learn the techniques they aren't ready for. But when they are ready for them, Perl tries to be there too. We just don't tell the beginners that the speedometer on their golf cart wraps around several times.

4) What will you *not* put into Perl 6?
by TreyHarris

What would you say has been the number one requested feature that you will not put into Perl6, and why not?

A:

That depends on what you call a feature, and what you call a request. If you look at all the RFCs at dev.perl.org, you'll find that most of the feature requests are bogus on some level or other because they tend to suggest bandaid solutions. Nevertheless, I think it's best to treat them all as a "cry for help". With computer languages, about 75% of the bandaids have a bullet hole underneath.

So, for instance, I officially rejected the RFC asking for multiline comments, while actually accepting the underlying premise that it was too difficult to do block comments. But the better solution is not to introduce more syntax, but to fix the POD syntax to do what people want.

But this is Perl, after all, so there has to be more than one solution. The other solution is to make the Perl grammar malleable enough that the user can install their own multiline comment mechanism anyway via a pragma, so there! That's fine by me, as long as the syntactic warpage is lexically scoped. "All is fair if you predeclare."

Another often-requested feature that's not going into Perl6 is implicit lexical declarations. That's one of those features that seems like a good idea when you're looking at small snippets of code, but it breaks down when the scopes get larger than you can see in a glance. Scoping by indentation has the same problem, but nobody has seriously requested that for Perl6, for some strange reason...

Now you might think that getting rid of the $, @, and % sigils would be the number one requested feature, but typically that is suggested only by people who don't know Perl and probably wouldn't use Perl even if we did get rid of them. The folks who know Perl tend to like the sigils.

5) perl vs other languages
by larry bagina

Whenever perl pops up in slashdot, there are plenty of language zealots claiming perl is obsolete and you should really be using php or ruby or python instead.

What are your thoughts on these other scripting languages? What do you like about them, what do you dislike?

A:

Well, in general, the thing I don't like about other computer languages is that they're not Perl. :-)

Seriously, Perl matches the way I think pretty well, because what I mostly want in a computer language is a wide dynamic range. I want a language in which you can say both dirty, low-level stuff and fancy, high-level stuff. I want a language where both baby-talk and fluency are acceptable. Other computer languages tend to try to level those distinctions.

As for specifics, I must say that the example of Ruby is the main reason I decided against implicit lexical scoping for Perl6. We'll be sticking with explicit my declarations. But I have to like the majority of Ruby simply because that's the part that was borrowed straight out of Perl. :-)

I also liked Ruby's unary splat operator, so I borrowed it for Perl6.

The main problem I see with Ruby is that the Principle of Least Surprise can lead you astray, as it did with implicit lexical scoping. The question is, whose surprise are you pessimizing? Experts are surprised by different things than beginners. People who are trying to grow small programs into large programs are surprised by different things than people who design their programs large to begin with.

For instance, I think it's a violation of the Beginner's Principle of Least Surprise to make everything an object. To a beginner, a number is just a number. A string is a string. They may well be objects as far as the computer is concerned, and it's even fine for experts to treat them as objects. But premature OO is a speed bump in the novice's onramp.

I confess, I have a soft spot in my heart for inside-out languages like PHP. The first real compiler I ever wrote was for a sort of text-processing macro language in which the commands were embedded in the data. This is part of a more general class of programming languages in which a peculiar form of processing is assumed by default, such as the pattern/action syntax of awk that assumes an invisible outer loop.

Perl can do that, but it's not the default. I think languages like awk and PHP hobble themselves in the long run by attaching themselves to a particular ecological niche, particularly when a generalist like Perl can effectively occupy the same niche. So I've never felt tempted to even try PHP. I'd only be speaking second-hand if I said that PHP has some serious namespace and extension mechanism issues. So I won't say that. :-)

Python is cool to look at small bits of, but I think the "outline" syntax breaks down with larger chunks of code. I'm with Aristotle on the structure of discourse--a story should have a beginning, and middle, and an end. So should blocks.

There's something to be said for forcing everyone to code in the same style, but that's not the Perl Way. At least, it's not the default Perl Way. But all is fair if you predeclare. It's perfectly fine for you to import a pragmatic module that enforces a certain style policy. It's even fine if your company forces you to import that pragma. Of course, if you want real programming discipline, I'd suggest you use Damian's Klingon module...

6) Perl and .NET
by prostoalex

What is your opinion of .NET in general and Perl's role in it? Given that .NET supports Perl as one of the languages would you recommend actually using it for any projects? Do you see good future for this tandem?

A:

As far as I'm concerned, .NET is just another architecture that we need to port Perl to run on natively. The current approach to .NET interoperability is a bit of a hack, I think. That is partly Perl's fault for not having a sufficiently powerful type declaration system, but it's also a problem that .NET doesn't really support dynamically typed languages very well. I foresee that we'll have something like a Parrot interface that functions as a (hopefully thin) layer of glue over other VMs such as .NET or Java machines. The less impedence mismatch there is, the thinner the layer can be.

I recommend that you use Perl where it makes sense to use Perl, and avoid using it where it doesn't make sense. I am not the judge of whether it makes sense to use Perl on .NET, simply because I'm way too ignorant and stupid to be making those kinds of decisions for you. Sorry.

As for the future, I really don't know. Long, long ago (when our galaxy was far away) I shoehorned Perl and Java into the same process, and it never aroused much excitement. Certainly the Java folks tend to turn up their noses at non-100% Java solutions, but it got a pretty chilly reception from the other end as well. By and large, Perl programmers don't seem to have much appreciation for Java. I think the language architects who aren't living in reality tend to like multi-language solutions a lot more than ordinary folks do.

Which is, of course, why we're doing exactly the same thing with Parrot. Go figure. :-)

6.5) From a project managers prospective
by mustangdavis

What are your thoughts on the comments made by people that Perl is not designed for projects that require more than one programmer? Many people have stated over and over again that Perl code can not be managed by more than one person ... what are your thoughts on that statement? How would you manage a large Perl project? Do you think Perl should be used for large projects? (or should it be used strictly as a "quick and dirty" programming language?) BTW: I love your work (someone had to say it)

A:

I do not manage any large projects, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding. I haven't an executive bone in my body. All my managerial skills are delegated. Ask anyone I've delegated to...

However, those who claim that Perl code cannot be managed by more than one person are obviously smoking something worse than crack. They're simply ignoring the many examples of people who have done just that. But you wouldn't expect to hire random people off the street to come in and collaborate on writing a novel. You can do it by hiring a few good novelists who already know how to figure out how to work together, or at least how to fight with each other productively. In the absence of that level of expertise, you can also do it by setting up policies under which random people can work, rather like the rules for writing about the world of Liavek, in which, for instance, every story has to mention a camel.

That being said, there are things we can do to make Perl6 better at helping managers and architects set up such policies for programming in the large. Having a standardized opaque object type will help there as well. Nobody is going to claim that Perl6's OO is "bolted on". Well, except maybe for certain Slashdotters who don't know the difference between rational discussion and cheerleading...

7) Role of Religion?
by Anonymous Cowdog

I remember reading at some point that you are a Christian, and there have been suggestions that some of your early missionary impulses (a desire to do good, help others) are perhaps part of the zeal you have put into Perl over the years.

Preferring a scientific view, I am not religious, and have no desire to be. Perhaps there is a God, but if there is, I think he/she has no opposable thumbs; in other words, has no power to change anything; reality is just playing out according to the laws of physics (whatever those are).

Please tell us how in the world a scientific or at least technical mind can believe in God, and what role religion has played in your work on Perl.

A:

Well, hmm, that's a topic for an entire essay, or a book, or a life. But I'll try to keep it short.

When you say "how in the world", I take it to mean that you find it more or less inconceivable that someone with a scientific mind (or at least technical mind, hah!) could chooose to believe in God. I'd like to at least get you to the point where you find it conceivable. I expect a good deal of the problem is that you are busy disbelieving a different God than the one I am busy believing in. In theological discussions more than any other kind, it's easy to talk at right angles and never even realize it.

So let me try to clarify what I mean, and reduce it to as few information bits as possible. A lot of people have a vested interest in making this a lot tougher to swallow than it needs to be, but it's supposed to be simple enough that a child can understand it. It doesn't take great energetic gobs of faith on your part--after all, Jesus said you only have to have faith the size of a mustard seed. So just how big is that, in information theory terms? I think it's just two bits big. Please allow me to qoute a couple "bits" from Hebrews, slightly paraphrased:

You can't please God the way Enoch did without some faith, because those who come to God must (minimally) believe that:
A) God exists, and
B) God is good to people who really look for him.

That's it. The "good news" is so simple that a child can understand it, and so deep that a philosopher can't.

Now, it appears that you're willing to admit the possibility of bit A being a 1, so you're almost halfway there. Or maybe you're a quarter way there on average, if it's a qubit that's still flopping around like Shoedinger's Cat. You're the observer there, not me--unless of course you're dead. :-)

A lot of folks get hung up at point B for various reasons, some logical and some moral, but mostly because of Shroedinger again. People are almost afraid to observe the B qubit because they don't want the wave function to collapse either to a 0 or a 1, since both choices are deemed unpalatable. A lot of people who claim to be agnostics don't take the position so much because they don't know, but because they don't want to know, sometimes desperately so.

Because if it turns out to be a 0, then we really are the slaves of our selfish genes, and there's no basis for morality other than various forms of tribalism.

And because if it turns out to be a 1, then you have swallow a whole bunch of flim-flam that goes with it. Or do you?

Let me admit to you that I came at this from the opposite direction. I grew up in a religious culture, and I had to learn to "unswallow" an awful lot of stuff in order to strip my faith down to these two bits.

I tried to strip it down further, but I couldn't, because God told me: "That's far enough. I already flipped your faith bits to 1, because I'm a better Observer than you are. You are Shroedinger's cat in reverse--you were dead spiritually, but I've already examined the qubits for you, and I think they're both 1. Who are you to disagree with me?"

So, who am I to disagree with God? :-) If he really is the Author of the universe, he's allowed to observe the qubits, and he's probably even allowed to cheat occasionally and force a few bit flips to make it a better story. That's how Authors work. Whether or not they have thumbs...

Once you see the universe from that point of view, many arguments fade into unimportance, such as Hawking's argument that the universe fuzzed into existence at the beginning, and therefore there was no creator. But it's also true that the Lord of the Rings fuzzed into existence, and that doesn't mean it doesn't have a creator. It just means that the creator doesn't create on the same schedule as the creature's.

If God is creating the universe sideways like an Author, then the proper place to look for the effects of that is not at the fuzzy edges, but at the heart of the story. And I am personally convinced that Jesus stands at the heart of the story. The evidence is there if you care to look, and if you don't get distracted by the claims of various people who have various agendas to lead you in every possible direction, and if you don't fall into the trap of looking for a formula rather than looking for God as a person. All human institutions are fallible, and will create a formula for you to determine whether you belong to the tribe or not. Very often these formulas are called doctrines and traditions and such, and there is some value in them, as there is some value in any human culture. But they all kind of miss the point.

"Systematic theology" is an oxymoron. God is not a system. Christians are fond of asking: "What would Jesus do in this situation?" Unfortunately, they very rarely come up with the correct answer, which is: "Something unexpected!" If the Creator really did write himself into his own story, that's what we ought to expect to see. Creative solutions.

And this creativity is intended to be transitive. We are expected to be creative. And we're expected to help others be creative.

And that leads us back (finally) to the last part of your question, how all this relates to Perl.

Perl is obviously my attempt to help other people be creative. In my little way, I'm sneakily helping people understand a bit more about the sort of people God likes.

Going further, we have the notion that a narrative should be defined by its heart and not by its borders. That ties in with my linguistic notions that things ought to be defined by prototype rather than by formula. It ties in to my refusal to define who is or is not a "good" Perl programmer, or who exactly is or isn't a member of the "Perl community". These things are all defined by their centers, not by their peripheries.

The philosophy of TMTOWTDI ("There's more than one way to do it.") is a direct result of observing that the Author of the universe is humble, and chooses to exercise control in subtle rather than in heavy-handed ways. The universe doesn't come with enforced style guidelines. Creative people will develop style on their own. Those are the sort of people that will make heaven a nice place.

And finally, there is the underlying conviction that, if you define both science and religion from their true centers, they cannot be in confict. So despite all the "religiosity" of Perl culture, we also believe in the benefits of computer science. I didn't put lexicals and closures into Perl5 just because I thought people would start jumping up and down and shouting "Hallelujah!" (Which happens, but that's not why I did it.)

And now let's all sing hymn #42...

8) Thanks Larry
by wdr1

Like many others, I love Perl. I use it both professionally and personally. You've not only helped make my career, but also given me a very pleasent past-time. I was wondering what I can do to say thank-you? Can we give you money? Dontate something to someone, etc.?

When the new Programming Perl came out, I didn't really need anymoe (viva perldoc!), but wanted to make sure I was putting a few bucks in the pockets of those who made Perl great. What else can I do to say thanks?

A:

Hmm, what timing! You must be from one of those churches where they pass the offering plate right after the sermon... :-)

Even just saying thanks is much appreciated. But if you want to help out more, there are lots of places to donate time or money. Unfortunately, it takes time to figure out how to donate time, since you have to hang out with various interest groups until you get, er, interested in one of them. But it's part of Perl culture to value contributions to Perl culture, so don't hold back just because your contribution is not somehow technical. That's not how we work.

Donating money is easy (except, of course, for the money part). Tax-deductible contributions can be made to the Perl Foundation. Much of my support for this year has come through the Perl Foundation--my full-time work on the Apocalypses would have been impossible without it. If you can persuade the companies you work for to make donations or to match your donations, that's also a worthwhile investment of time (and in some cases, agony). Please allow me to express my sincere gratitude here for everyone who has contributed already. This program is made possible by viewers like you.

9) perl 6 niche
by maraist

perl 1-5 have been great UNIX configuration/management languages. This includes small-scale webserver platforms. It's very difficult to find any other language that is as versitile in this respect where it reigns in it's niche. It is the perfect combination of speed, power, simplicity and huffman encoding (especially given the co-UNIX-tools look-and-feel).

Perl6 on the other hand, changes this formula around; favoring a more general solution that potentially reduces performance (due to abstractions), and deviates substantially from the UNIX-family-syntax - Namely: c-ish-syntax ( colon, question mark, select, exception-handling, etc), awk/sedish reg-ex's, raw c-libray-wrappers, etc. It was these very similarities that made learning and accepting perl so trivial since learning CIS and UNIX administration was sufficient to master perl in 2 days.

My question is: does perl6 have a niche in mind? Or is it spreading itself too thinly; competing more and more against Java/python/C# and thus losing it's identifiable niche?

A:

Excellent question. I love the evolutionary biologists' way of talking about organisms as if they're evolving on purpose: "I think I'll develop feathers now and become a bird...", though in Perl's case, of course, there is some amount of purpose in my head (some would say "not enough"), not to mention the heads of other Perl developers (some would say "too much" (or is it the other way around?)), but it's still great fun to talk about Perl as if it were its own beastie, or as if it were a character in a novel that runs away with the plot despite the intentions of the author, kinda like this sentence has.

Anyway, from the start, Perl has never really been satisfied with staying in any one particular ecological niche. That's not terribly healthy approach in evolutionary terms, especially when your niche goes away. Perl's been pretty lucky so far to land in stable niches, but if some of its current niches dry up someday, that's really only to be expected, and indeed almost hoped for. It's probably the fault of closing ecological niches that we aren't all still swinging from trees, after all. (Of course, some of us still are, but that portion of us isn't heavily represented on Slashdot. Er...appearances to the contrary notwithstanding.)

Perl started out as just a text processing language--a better awk and sed--but it very rapidly spread to the ecological niche of system administration. On Unix, at least, a lot of system administration is text processing. With version3, however, Perl very intentionally escaped the text-processing-only niche by adding the capability to process binary data. Perl4 UNintentionally spread from the sysadmin niche into the CGI/Web niche. Perl5 accellerated that trend by intentionally occupying the extensible-glue-language niche, which had the unforeseen (by me) but predictable result of enabling Web sites to hook all their backend databases to the various textual Internet protocols.

But if you're worried about Perl trying to inhabit the "good for everything" niche, that's actually been Perl's intention since Perl5 came out. After all, you can't add OO to any language without making it perfect. ;-)

Seriously, I think that, for many of the people who use Perl today, the ecological niche they're thinking of is already labeled "everything", even if it isn't quite. For those folks, trying to make Perl better for the "everything" niche is not really an issue--they're already panting for it. These are the people who will actually carry Perl over to the next ecological niche it spills into, and the ones after that. I just made Perl a glue language, and other people applied it to bootstrapping the Web. Making Perl the best tool for growing programs from small to large is actually one of the underlying design goals of Perl6. But other people will use that to inhabit, or even create, other ecological niches. I hope to be surprised again as I was with the Web. I could, of course, be completely wrong.

10) How to get people to take Perl seriously
by kin_korn_karn

I'm a perl programmer who uses it daily. The push is on from the C?O types to get rid of Perl, even though a bunch of us here know it and are very proficient and fast with it. The new standard is Java with web services and all that other BS. This sickens me, because a) I'm biased towards Perl and b) I know Java is simply a fad language and the overhead/infrastructure only serves to give do-nothing architect types jobs.

The high-level technical people in my company don't take Perl seriously. They see it as some kind of super-Awk or an artifact of the early days of the web. Smart people know better, but we're not in charge.

What do you think it would take to get people to take Perl seriously as a programming language [again]? Is widespread use of Perl a goal of yours, or do you not care?

A:

Well, if Java really is a "fad" language, we don't have to do anything to beat it, now do we? :-)

Leaving that aside, my goal is (and has always been) for Perl to be as useful as possible. It naturally follows that if people are avoiding Perl for artificial reasons, Perl is not being as useful as possible. So there's a place for advocacy. It is an unfortunate fact that, human nature being what it is, an ounce of cheerleading often beats a pound of rational discussion.

However, my job is not to lead cheers, but to make sure that Perl is designed to be maximally useful. It has never been a direct goal of mine to be "taken seriously". For good or ill, I am composed of far more levity than gravity. And I'm afraid some of that rubs off on Perl, too. But if Perl is everything it ought to be, it will naturally attract serious attention over the long term. If ecological niches are natural, and if nature abhors a vacuum, it follows that ecological niches abhor vacuums too. I expect to hear some great sucking sounds over the next ten or twenty years.

Comments

odd

[glwtta]

I found the first question to be rather strange, maybe because of where it is to be found:

http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/0 9/06/1343222&mode=nocomment&tid=145

"because God told me"

[Anonymous Coward]

I love it when religious arguments that purport to be "logical" include statements like this.

Re:"because God told me"

[Lemmy Caution]

The truest part of his statement is his honesty in admitting that he was raised in a very religious environment, and that his own personal religiousity was a way of trying to consolidate and preserve as much of that as he can (which is often part and parcel of preserving a relationship with one's family of origin) while still maintaining some logical consistency.

For any truly intelligent, open-minded evangelical Christian, the hard question is "so, you really believe that all the Buddhists, Jews, Hindus and secularists are all damned to hell, and that only people in the Born-Again Club get in?" Because this is such a counter-intuitive notion to anyone who would attribute any compassion to God, that salvation hinge not on the stance of your spirit but on your doctrinal commitments, that many cannot really bring themselves to say it.

For me, the saddest bit of it is that a true authentic sense of spiritual feeling, compassion, and expansiveness becomes burdened with exclusionary and sanctimonious doctrines and attitudes. Larry Wall seems like a truly wonderful person, almost despite his creeds as much as because of them.

Re:"because God told me"

[deesvito]

From any truly intelligent, open-minded evangelical Christian (I'm not evangelical though) :-), the good answer is to relate the good samaritan parable.

Most people, Christian or not, know about this one. It is part of Jesus' response to the question "What shall I do to inherit eternal life". He answered to love God, and your neighbor. To the question "Who is my neighbor", he answered with the parable.

Basically a bunch of good, God loving people (even a priest!) pass a badly hurt man on the street without helping him, even going out of their way to avoid them (some of them thought he must be drunk). Then a nonbeliever (a Samaritan) had compassion for him, took him to an inn, patched his wounds, and asked the innkeeper to take care of him for as long as he needed and he would reimburse him.

This story is great, because it has two points. First, that we are not supposed to be judging other people over whether they are "Buddhists, Jews, Hindus, or secularists". We're in fact not supposed to judge at all - that's up to Him for later.

The second, and most important, point is that even these "Buddhists, Jews, Hindus and secularists" (you forgot Muslims) can be deserving because of their acts of love and kindness, since love is something you feel and do, not something you talk and thump your Bible about. Their acts can make them even more so deserving than a born and raised Christian.

The question you are posing is not easy, and has been addressed on Christian theological discussion throughout the years. The particular question "are you saved by your faith or by your acts?" has always been a difficult thing to ponder for Christians. In my opinion, why not do both, ignore the naysayers, don't judge the ones who "won't convert" and keep the question unimportant anyway. :-)

The other part of your post, about the exclusionary doctrines, nothing I've ever read about Larry Wall has ever made me think that he hates non-christian folken. That reveals a possible prejudice against religion on yourself.

But again, who am I to judge? :-)

Just my 2c.

Re:"because God told me"

[barawn]

So here you are thinking for God. If God says you must believe in him to be saved, why is that so hard to follow? And how can you say a Hindu believes in the one true God? Because a Hindu doesn't. It's not most people on this planet haven't been exposed to Christianity and can say "Well I never knew!". It's not like its a hard religion. You don't have to follow hundreds of laws, you don't have to bow down 5 times a day...you just have to believe. He's made the path fairly easy and if people don't follow it then its because they chose to not follow it and miss the train. It's silly for people to keep arguing how evil God is because he'll send everyone to hell who refuses to believe in him.

Wow. That's really bizarre. Where to start...

The first question to ask is "what/who is God?" Without that, your question doesn't mean anything. Note that God, in the Bible, didn't even give himself a name - just "I am" (which is about as fundamental as you can get). Who are you to say that what a Hindu, or a Jew, or a Muslim, or a Wiccan believe in isn't God as well? If you haven't heard the elephant parable, you should - basically, if a bunch of blind men are trying to describe an elephant by touch, you'll get a ton of completely disparate answers, which, when looked at from a higher stance, all make sense. It's much the same way with religion. All religions have the same kernel of truth to them - it's up to the people to figure them out.

I find it amazingly hard to believe that people put such huge restrictions on God, that he can't present himself to billions upon billions of people in billions upon billions of ways.

Your argument is just weak - what about all of the people who were born before Christ? What about all of the Native Americans, who were geographically distinct? What about infants? God presents himself in many different ways to many different people, and the truth is that they're all true. Just because you can't handle many seemingly contradictory things being true doesn't make them not true.

scientists' belief in gods

[Ravagin]

Please tell us how in the world a scientific or at least technical mind can believe in God, and what role religion has played in your work on Perl.

I missed the original discussion in which all these questions were collected, but yowza, that's a dense question (no offense to the inquirer!).

I am not religious either - faith is simply not in me, I cannot believe in something I cannot see - so I see where the inquirer is coming from, but as Larry puts it, the question is talking at right angles.

To say "you're a scientist, how can you believe in God?" makes the automatic and ignorant assumption that said scientist believes said god created the world in thirty days, wrought man from the testicles of a gopher, and causes the sun to rise every day by means of ropes and pulleys (or something of the like - you get my point).

Larry may be a Christian, but though there may be many irrational/ignorant/intolerant Christians in the world, not all Christians are like that. As a friend of mine says, the attitude that they are "puts the asshole in atheist."

Being religious does not preclude being a smart and talented scientist. Sorry if this is a bit OT, but I'm kind of fed up with the attitude that "belief in god(s)" == "irrational and stupid." And though he has in no way convinced me, I'm quite impressed with Larry's defense of his faith.

Re:scientists' belief in gods

[totallygeek]

Remember, too, that scientists have been ridiculed by other scientists throughout history. Germs? Something you cannot see that makes you ill? Have anti-septic surgery?

The atom looks like pudding? The atom cannot be made of any smaller particles. Splitting an atom wouldn't make much energy.

Fly?

Go to the moon?

More examples? And, as far as having to see something to believe -- have you travelled to every continent or just taken someone's word that those places exist? Are you sure there are other galaxies? Have you even seen Pluto? Can you "see" microwave radiation or a single atom?

I am not faithful either, but cut the faithful some slack. Their beliefs are just as strong as our non-belief. Let's at least be good-hearted athiests.

Re:scientists' belief in gods

[Soko]

Stop being pendantic and splitting hairs.

The existance of atoms and quanta can be proven with mathematics (besides scientific observation) - they can be "seen" when you use the language of science. I know of no mathematical formula or scientific experimant that _proves_ the exisitance of God - so He truly is "un-seeable" (in the context of the physical world, anyway).

Belief in a Higher Power is (or should be, anyhow) a matter of faith and personal choice, nothing else, IMHO.

Soko

Re:scientists' belief in gods

[disappear]

The difference is, Scientists will eventually admit they were wrong and their "beliefs" will morph and change over time based on evidence.

This happens surprisingly infrequently with individual scientists. What tends to happen is that the scientists who don't believe the new, well-supported evidence (or its interpretation) retire or die.

This is one of Kuhn's basic points.

Re:scientists' belief in gods

[PyromanFO]

" The difference is, Scientists will eventually admit they were wrong and their "beliefs" will morph and change over time based on evidence. Religion will not."
Are you suggesting that Catholics from the Middle Ages hold all the same beliefs as modern day Baptists?
All religions change, because they are made up of people. People change, thier beliefs and ideas change because the world around them changes. Religon, in many cases, is similar to science in that it is just a collection of people who are trying to understand a basic common problem.
Yes there are religons who think they have never changed and never will. There are also scientists who thought that the world was always flat and it could never be anything different. Some people think they are the only ones who are right, and all others are wrong. But this is not exclusive to religion or any other group for that matter.

Re:scientists' belief in gods

[Scottie-Z]

The difference is between the 'Scientific Method' characterized by experiment and measurement, and the 'Investigative Method', characterized by careful study of historical evidence. Your detectives would be using the latter. I'm sure the author was alluding to the fact that there is indeed a great wealth of historical evidence regarding the person of Jesus that is able to be analyzed investigatively, rather than scientifically.

Re:Good point on PHP

[Ravagin]

I don't know - if I all I need to do is check some cookies and output a stylesheet based on those cookies, or dip into a database and sort and output some data, why do I need perl? I can do it quickly and painlessly in my page with PHP. No need to go around insulting those of us who use it as "unserious."

I see perl's coolness, but just to play contrary deity's advocate with you... why not PHP? :)

Re:Good point on PHP

[jeorgen]

Ars-Fartsica writes:

In this sense the rise of PHP has mystified me. Why the need for a novel language to do web scripting

mod_php is installed at most Apache based web hosting services, mod_perl practically never.

(The mod_p(erl|hp) makes the scripts run as long running processes instead of short lived processes incurring a lot of overhead).

Besides, there is no standard template language for perl, and that fragments the knowledge in the field in the perl community.

/jeorgen
perl and Zope coder

Re:Good point on PHP

[Jester99]

Why the need for a novel language to do web scripting? The only argument I can see is ease of installation and learning, but those aren't good reasons for serious developers.

When all you have is a hammer... everything looks like a nail.

Perl is a really, really, honkin' big hammer. It can smash just about any nail into anything. But sometimes, a wrench or a screwdriver would do the job better.

A master carpenter doesn't say "I can do anything with this hammer, given enough effort." He's got a giant toolbox filled with a dozen wrenches, a few hammers, screwdrivers... you get the point.

If you want to consider yourself a "serious developer", you should really consider broadening your skill set. There's a lot of things that I can do very fast in perl, but sometimes I need to come up with a quick database enabled website on Windows 2000. I immediately think, "Cold Fusion." Sure, I could install ActiveState perl, but I can do the job twice as quickly in CFML.

Likewise, PHP has it's job creating webpage templates in a UNIX environment. PHP has great database hooks and CGI handling. I can do some things in PHP in fewer lines than in Perl. The converse is also true -- in which case, I use Perl, and not PHP.

So, if you're handy enough with the Perl hammer, you could probably use it for everything. But you might dent up the walls a bit on the way.

Re:Removing the % $ and @

[Anonymous Coward]

I find reading symbols to be better sometimes. Just easier to convert to code from boxes and arrows.

I find that

$foo{"xyz"} = "moose";

Is more eloquent than foo.setHashKey("xyz","moose");

because I can comprehend it without translating to English first. Same way with Calculus. Formulas read better than word problems.

Hmm, how's that for linguistics!

Sorry Larry

[Reality Master 101]

God is good to people who really look for him.

This is actually a premise we can test, and it's simply false. Many studies have been done comparing religious and non-religious people, and it's never been found that religious people end up with "better luck" (better health, better livelyhood, better children, etc) that non-religious people.

Now, you could argue that perhaps these studies aren't correcting properly for whether someone is "really" looking for God, but at the very least we can assume that if God is "good" to those people, then the effect is pretty subtle.

Re:Sorry Larry

[TheHulk]

If you use dissimilar measurement systems, your math will never compute... What I mean is what do you define as "better livelyhood" or "better children"? To a non-believer a better kid may be a kid that grows up to play in the NFL, looks like Brittney Spears, or has the IQ of 200. To a Christian, non of this matters, and a kid that's physically handicapped and loves their family may seem like the best gift anyone could ask for. To some, making a six-figure salary may seem like a good livelihood, to others, just making a salary may seem "lucky".... To some, living to 100 years old may seem like a healthy life, and to a other, being able to live at all may seem like good health. My point is you cannot affix a value to certain life situations, because not everyone values these earthly situations the same way.... Whether your Christian or not, this holds true.

Re:Sorry Larry

[Boing]

Larry: "God is good to people who really look for him."

"This is actually a premise we can test, and it's simply false. Many studies have been done comparing religious and non-religious people, and it's never been found that religious people end up with 'better luck'"

That doesn't sound like "simply false" to me. Sounds more like "not necessarily true", which is a far cry.

I think anyone with a basic understanding of the way religions tend to work would tell you that the perks of being religious occur when you die, not while you're alive. Many evil people have great lives, many (some of the best) good people have crap lives. The premise of the whole thing is that everyone gets their just desserts in the end.

I'm not saying that premise is correct. But you did not satisfactorily refute Larry's statement with your argument.

Re:Sorry Larry

[Zathrus]

So, I suppose that you're going to ignore the numerous studies that show that "people of faith" have a higher survival rate for cancer and other long term illnesses? Or, at the very least, suffer less depression? (Yes, unsurprisingly, different studies have had different results).

Yes, I'm an atheist. And I raise an eyebrow at these studies as well, but to some extent I'm unsurprised. There's a great deal of psychology when it comes to survival of a long term illness, and people who believe in a "higher power" may very well have a better attitude toward all of it, believing that God will pull them through, or that if they die then they're at least going to a better place. Ask any Oncology doctor -- they'll tell you that a good attitude is essential to surviving, and as such believers may be more likely to have that attitude.

And, of course, others have made commentary regarding how you measure "better", and that some measurements may not be accurate. I know that I'd rather be poor and happy rather than rich and miserable. (Of course, I can say this having never really been poor... shrug... but I've been deeply unhappy before in my life and I know I don't like that, and that money doesn't solve it).

The question wasn't about ethics

[Ted V]

With all due respect, the initial question was "How can you believe in God?" and not "Which of the huge litany of Christian, Catholic, and pseudo-Christian ethical laws do you think actually apply, and how do you reconcile the ones that seem to conflict with scientific evidence?"

Larry really was right-- a lot of people's perceptions make the question more complicated than it needs to be.

Only Larry Wall

[The Pim]

could get away with using the word "renaissanciest".

Lately, I've seen more and more uptight types[1] skewer Larry as a half-assed linguist, a half-assed language designer, a half-assed art historian, and a half-assed philosopher. What they don't realize is that Larry sees things from so many perspectives--some entirely original--and incorporates them so fluidly, that analyzing him in any narrow way is laughably short-sighted. Yes, he is educated in these fields, but expecting him to come off sounding like an orthodox linguist, language designer, art historian, or philosopher entirely misses his true gifts.

Set aside your judgement for a moment, and simply savor the output of one of the most creative, wittiest, and just plain renaissanciest minds with which we have the pleasure to associate. (Oh, he's also a nice guy and never said anything mean about you. :-) )

[1] Yes, they're mostly Python advocates

Re:Only Larry Wall

[The Pim]

He does indeed seem like a nice guy, but also one who has a tendency to put words into mouths.

Larry said,

Python's slogan is "There's only one obvious way to do it."

That's right there in The Zen of Python.

One thing I have never heard a real python programmer say is that there is only one way to do it.

Larry didn't say that. Nobody said that. That would be ridiculous. Even the "one obvious way" mantra is a point of contention among Python programmers (as the other respondant pointed out, check the comp.lang.python discussions).

By the way, I don't mean to criticize people who prefer Python. I like Python too, especially compared to writing Java. I merely decry the trend to cast Perl and Larry as a dilettanti and a bad hack (in some order). Most of it is mean-spirited and has little merit.

Science dosn't nessarly conflect with God.

[jellomizer]

Part of science is to prove that it exists. Just because you cant find evidence that prove that God exisits, dosent mean that God dosent exisit. I have not heard of any sciencetific method of Proving that God dosent exist. If you cant prove that something exisit then you have to prove that it dosent exist to be scientifically proven that God dosent exist. So if a Scienctist beleaves in God that dosent conflect with his science because God hasent been proven or Disproven. At best science seems to show that parts of the religious text are not nessarly word for word. Witch most religous people (including priest and bishops, etc) dont take the entire text literal.

I guess I'm a bit confused...

[Ted V]

I guess I'm a bit confused... Since when was the whole point of Christianity getting into Heaven and avoiding Hell? If your view of religion is just about what happens "after death", then I submit that perhaps you're missing the point. Do you really think God made this whole world just to throw it away in a few thousand years after it starts getting interesting?

Not that there isn't any room for discussions of an afterlife, but my impression of Christianity from the Bible reading I've done seems to imply that Christianity is far more about the present world.

My theory is that most Christians look for God to do stuff in the real world and don't see it, so they assume that's because religion only matters for the afterlife. It's a defense mechanism that avoids admitting, "I must have misunderstood something about what God wants."

Re:I guess I'm a bit confused...

[joshki]

It's not. The point of Christianity is to accept Jesus as your personal saviour and Lord. This is the most important part -- Jesus will save you, and in doing so He's going to change the way you live your life. If you don't change, you don't believe -- it's that simple. Many people understand the saviour part -- but most forget the part that you have to accept His control over your life.

The point the original poster was trying to make is that your salvation is not dependant on performing good works -- it's dependant on accepting Jesus, and allowing Him to change your life.

Christianity is about a life change -- not a fire insurance policy.

Re:I guess I'm a bit confused...

[mlong]

I guess I'm a bit confused... Since when was the whole point of Christianity getting into Heaven and avoiding Hell? If your view of religion is just about what happens "after death", then I submit that perhaps you're missing the point. Do you really think God made this whole world just to throw it away in a few thousand years after it starts getting interesting?

No that was just the point I decided to discuss. Christianity is an entire package. That is why I said elsewhere on thsi topic that if you believe in the Lord and accept the holy spirit then He will slowly change you from the inside out. Thus its not that you aren't allowed to do stuff, but rather you do not desire to do stuff (ie immoral stuff).

Not that there isn't any room for discussions of an afterlife, but my impression of Christianity from the Bible reading I've done seems to imply that Christianity is far more about the present world.

Yes it is about both but more importantly what happens in the next world/life. This is why being a martyr in Christianity is not such a bad thing. Jesus spends a great deal of time talking about such things such as he is preparing a mansion for us and he will return and make all things new, etc. Of course being a Christian is all about living a livestyle pleasing to God. So you don't just sit around twidling your thumbs waiting to die...you live life to its fullest, but more importantly, live it as God intended (morally and spiritually).

My theory is that most Christians look for God to do stuff in the real world and don't see it, so they assume that's because religion only matters for the afterlife. It's a defense mechanism that avoids admitting, "I must have misunderstood something about what God wants."

This is very true. God always answers prayers, but sometime his answer is "no" or "not yet" and thats something that is hard for some Christians to accept. God is looking out for what is in our best interests, not our desires.

Re:Good point on PHP

[Second_Derivative]

Because in my humble experience, PHP makes easy things a cinch but complex things impossible and extremely insecure. The fact that most large PHP projects eschew the entire concept entirely in favour of a home cooked template system and also a home cooked db abstraction library bears this out nicely. (I wrote a much longer schpiel on this in the original question thread but that sums it up nicely).

In short, I use PHP as SSI+. As a db-savvy preprocessor (the first P in PHP you'll notice) it's brilliant. But anything more than that, doubt it.

The problem with your logic...

[jaaron]

The first mistake most people make (religious, athiest, or whatever) is incorrectly defining the problem and its scope. Your being too closed minded with your analysis.

Okay, so if there is a God and he/she/it/them/... and if the premise is that "God is good to people who really look for him" then that cannot be properly tested in any way. Why? Because how is God good to them? How many subtle ways might God have saved a person's life or changed it? Perhaps some hardship one faces is, in the long run, "better" for them. And what's more, if there is a God, then the it's quite likely that the "goodness" God will give to those who "really look for him" won't come until some sort of afterlife. And how could you measure that?

So the logic doesn't stand -- as most "logic" people use to claim existance or non-existance of God. Too often people limit the scope of possiblities and come to incorrect and inconsistant conclusions.

Obligatory existential quibble

[UberQwerty]

Once you look at the level your brain is most comfortable with, you can see the art and creativity.

First of all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and beauty is relative. Everything is beautiful; some things are simply not very beautiful (or maybe negatively beautiful; whatever), just like very cold things simply have very little heat. Of course something is beautiful if you look at it on the level your brain likes most. What if I look at a rotten, brown banana peel soaking in a mixture of used motor oil and fly-infested human feces? Not beautiful. But what if I look at it through a microscope? I might find the microscopic structure beautiful. I have not, however, changed what I'm looking at; only how I'm looking at it. Remember, beauty is not just in the beholder, it is also in his or her "eye."

As for artistic expression, an object is art if and only if two conditions are met: someone created it, and that creator claims/intends that the creature is art. I don't want to get into the argument of whether humans are the creatures of some more powerful entity; the point is that unless you manage to convince the entire rest of the world that humans are creatures and not accidents, you cannot expect people to agree with you when you say that humans are works of art. A rock formation may be beautiful, but it is not art unless someone put it that way on purpose.

Re:Good point on PHP

[Bald Wookie]

why not PHP?

because PHP tends mixes content / presentation and control

It's the programmers that tend to mix the layers, not the language itself. You might think PHP's ability to mix logic and presentation is a fault. I disagree. Let's take a look at some of the things that Larry said about Perl, and apply them to PHP:

As for Perl, it has never been "structured" in that sense, though it has always been structured in the sense that you can create as much structure as you like. The whole point is that the structure is optional, not imposed externally.

This describes the PHP situation fairly accurately. As the programmer, you get to determine the level of structure. This week I've worked on two applications in PHP. One of them is a very unstructured little script so that my brother can get my dynamic IP address. The other is an OO content management system that uses templates for everything. If I had to use highly structured techniques for the first script, it would have been too much of a hassle to bother. If I'd written the second application in unstructured blender mode, I might as well not have bothered.

Now I'm not going to say that I haven't written big projects in an unstructured manner. I've also over-structured small projects. When you wield flexibility, sometimes the gun gets pointed at your foot.

Back to Larry:
You have to have discipline to do programming in the large, but you'll choose the discipline by turning up the big discipline knob yourself, not by having someone else turn it up for you.

This is a philosophical decision, but it's one that I tend to agree with. Having the structures available lets you work on large projects. Not forcing you to use them lets you scratch the little itches. There is a ton of bad PHP out there, but that is the programmer's fault, not the language's.

Re:Excellent

[JimR]

Software written before Java emerged on the scene - software pre-1995 - was all pretty much a hack. Much of the software that is still being written is a hack. People change slowly. Programmers have to die, almost, for this to change. - Bill Joy

Wow! For this to be true Java must have changed a hell of a lot since I stopped using it in 1999 (when I took up Perl).

Of all the languages I have used extensively (including C, C++, Smalltalk, Java, Tcl, Lisp, Prolog, Modula2, ML - a few that spring to mind immediately - I have dabbled in many others), I have found Perl to be the least annoying. With all the others you always run up against some brick wall that requires you admit that you can't get where you want to be from where you are. In Perl it always seems to be possible to get yourself out (even when completely recoding is the right thing to do).

Re:Hmmm...

[Jason Earl]

I have a three-year-old daughter. Now, I could duct-tape her to a wall in her bedroom and guarantee that she never did anything that I didn't want her to do. However, that isn't my goal as a parent. Instead I allow her to use her free agency to learn and grow.

In other words, your problem is that you misunderstand God's purpose. We aren't here because God was bored and wanted a really fancy electric train set. We are here because God loves us, and he wants us to learn and grow. God could, if he wanted to, control our actions, and even our thoughts, but instead he has given us the ability to make choices for ourselves. What you do with that ability is up to you.

Re:Interesting point about Christianity

[mlong]

Generally people say, "God couldn't create a being that both had free will and yet would never choose evil, that's a contradiction in terms."

Yep

I then ask, "Okay, God is perfect and we're told It will never choose to do evil. So, does God have free will?"

Yes, God can do whatever He wants. He could be an evil God if he wanted. But He doesn't want to do that, because his very nature is good. I mean, I could get on all fours and act like a dog if I wanted, but why would I want to?

If yes, then there's no contradiction, and God would have created beings like that instead of us humans. If no, then how could such a robot be deserving of worship? It might be wise to kowtow to It, but how could it be moral?

No we are created like God but He didn't clone himself. He created us with a blank slate.

Re:Hmmm...

[Callamon]

Being a logical thinker, I've often thought about the role God has played in my life. I like the way you describe it here, but I think you leave one thing out.

Every time my life has gotten really confused and difficult enough for me to ask God for help I have received it. This isn't to say I ask for money and He gives it to me... But when I've prayed for guidance, strength, or simply for help out of a very difficult situation, things have always worked out soon thereafter.

Now you could say this is just coincidence, or that I answered my own plea for help.. But I believe that God does hear our prayers and that he will help in small (but meaningful) ways.

Think of it as going to your father to ask for help with a problem you're having. He will likely give you advice but won't solve the problem for you. If you take his advice you may solve it yourself however. I think God will help us to make the right choice if we ask for help, but he won't make the choice for us.

The magic knob!

[j3110]

Hopefully, this knob of which he speeks will have a "Readable" selection. I find myself, after having written some perl (and commented it), wondering what I just did to make it work. When I go back to fix some bug, I find it easier to just redo a section than to figure out exactly why it was functional (not even considering the bug at this point). The line noise perl programs should be impossible when the knob is set "Readable".

As for theology, the existance of God to me is a qubit that can be observed with any given teaching. When I use the Bible to observe it, I keep getting a 0 because the old testiment was much to brutal for me to accept as devine. That's better than getting the -1 that I think I would get with scientology though :).

Re:Hmmm...

[bnenning]

archaeological evidence showing that certain people mentioned in the NT actually existed

Ok, but that's hardly conclusive. After all, L. Ron Hubbard existed.

Re:Hmmm...

[Callamon]

I'm not claiming that every time things get rocky I pray and everything becomes ok again. I'm talking about when everything in my life has on the absolute verge of collapse. When I had nowhere to turn for help, and nobody to lean on. When I felt as if I couldn't go on anymore and where everything I did seemed to make it worse. This has happened a handful of times in my life (3-4), and things may have worked out eventually, but I honestly feel that they may not have.

You can believe that this was just coincidence or natural fluctuations. Or you may think that it was just my own belief that calmed me enough to make the right choices... I personally believe that there is more to the universe than happenstance. I can't prove it, that's why it's called faith...

For the record (and I know you didn't claim otherwise), I do believe in science, evolution, quantum physics, the laws of nature, and such.. These are not in conflict with my religious beliefs at all though. I think that God set everything in motion and set the laws of the universe. I also think he could change them or tweak them (as Larry said, flipping a bit here or there). I don't believe everything the bible says (and I've never read a lot of it for that reason) because it was written by men. I think it's a collection of metaphorical stories meant to convey the moral principles that God would like us to live by, but not the actual literal word of God.

I was raised catholic, but have moved away from it or any other formal religious practice. I don't go to a church, don't read the bible, and never push my beliefs on others (you can take or leave what I'm writing here). I don't think that a church that is run by men can put me more in touch with God than I can by myself.

Men are falible, and I'd rather speak directly to God than to a priest or minister. If God does exist, I don't think he'd need proxy servers for us to communicate with him.

Re:I saw the whole thing

[Anonymous Coward]

That beer story is actually about right-on.

Many people ask "Do our lives have a purpose? If so, then what is the purpose of our lives?" Well, the answer is yes, our lives have purpose. Their purpose is to help somebody (i.e., God) solve a problem (e.g., God wants a beer).

You see, at a very basic level, our Universe is a big digital computer running something like a cellular automaton. It's actually quite simple. He chose simple rules and some initial seed state that would make our future unpredictable, yet deterministic. The apparent randomness of quantum mechanics isn't exactly random, only unpredictable by us. The probability density functions that pop up in quantum mechanics are actually deterministic at a more basic level. A complete specification of the basic rules and initial state for our universe could be written on a single piece of paper, and will lead to the "laws of physics" that we observe. I won't write them here though, since slashdot's html formating rules might mess them up.

Also, you may find it interesting that God cannot predict the future, even though it is deterministic. The only way to determine the future is to run the universe program on God's computer. There is no shortcut, not even for God. That's why we exist. In order for Him to solve His problem, He must let the universe program run its course on His computer. God didn't actually know that our universe would lead to beer a priori. However, beer sure was a nice side effect!