Talk:Larry Wall

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A Quote of Larry's

Larry has been quoted as saying that the three cardinal virtues of a programmer are hubris, laziness, and impatience. I'm surprised not to see that in here somewhere. Bovlb 18:16, 2004 Apr 26 (UTC)

More of a WikiQuote thing really (they have lots of his quotes, that one included), I've added the wikiquote link. --fvw 21:56, 2004 Oct 7 (UTC)

"Linguist by trade"

I'm pretty much 99% sure that Larry Wall is not employed as a linguist, but rather as a programmer and writer, and previously as a systems administrator. He was trained in linguistics at some point, but I don't know when or how. --ESP 06:32, 26 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Canadian Larry Wall is different from the Perl creator

Unfortunately, somebody put in that Larry Wall was born in 1949 in Canada. The two Larry's are extremely similar in appearance, age, and places they've lived, so the confusion is understandable:

	Canadian-Larry-Wall	Perl-Larry-Wall
Eyewear:	Wears Glasses	Wears glasses
Facial:	Has a moustache	Has a moustache
Ethnicity:	Caucasian (white)	Caucasian (white)
Birth year:	March 10, 1949	Most web sites say 1954
Birthplace:	Duncan, British Columbia, Canada	Most web sites say Los Angeles, California
Life location:	Grew up in Silicon Valley area (San Jose, California). As an adult, moved to Seattle, Washington as an adult	Grew up around Seattle, Washington. As an adult, moved to Silicon Valley area (Mountain View, California) (note: the exact opposite route of Canadian-Larry-Wall!)
College:	Attended San Jose State University	Graduated from Seattle Pacific University
Spouse's name:	Kathleen	Gloria
Occupation:	Painter, sculptor	Perl
Homepage:	http://www.walrusproductions.com/zaboutlarry.html (has photographs)	http://www.wall.org/~larry/ (has photographs)

Also, the 1949 page references the American Programmer, but puts in the Candian Larry wall's birthdate. While the 1954 page doesn't list Larry wall at all.

Birthday

So if it isn't March 10, remove it from there as well? Or is it same day but different year? BACbKA 14:17, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It should probably be removed.

Wall was born in 1954. 95.88.71.75 (talk) 07:24, 10 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Larry didn't write "confess"

The article says the "confess" subroutine of the Carp module is from Larry Wall, but that's not true. 12:14, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Reference to my paragraph of Larry's grad school plans

See interview with Perl from 1998: http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19980408S0020 , search for "Africa".

The origins of the name PERL

I don't think Larry ever said that the term PERL was Biblical in origin. All his books, and books about PERL, describe how he developed the language after starting with the early extraction and reporting tools awk and sed. He refined them into a new tool which he referred to as his Practical Extraction & Report Language, or PERL. Any text on Perl will include this historical tidbit at the front. Back of Beyond (talk) 06:10, 24 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

the so-called 2 Rules

Are there really two such rules? I followed the link to the "official Perl documentation", but that seems like a piece of self-mockery or an in-joke. Perhaps this part of the article (him having veto in the Perl development) should be written in more neutral terms, i.e. ones which doesn't make him sound like Josef Stalin. That also goes for the Benevolent Dictator for Life title – where has it ever been consistently applied to Wall? JöG (talk) 21:45, 13 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, as one of the perl5-porters and long-time user (i.e. an insider), I second this. The "2 rules" thing is indeed an in-joke even if we consider Larry's opinion very important. On a related note, Larry has withdrawn from the Perl 5 (the language that people mean if they refer to "Perl" nowadays) development. Instead, he has been exclusively working on an entirely new language: Perl 6. -- Steffen Mueller 141.52.67.206 (talk) 18:00, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have updated the article to remove the two roles joke as well as the incorrect statement. SimplifyYourCSS (talk) 08:08, 13 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Missing Accomplishment

Shouldn't the creation of Perl be listed in the Accomplishments section?

Missing Accomplishment

Shouldn't the creation of Perl be listed in the Accomplishments section? Rodeored (talk) 13:30, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Manipulexity and Whipituptitude

I've been looking for the original essay about manipulexity and whipituptitude, that I believe Larry coined. I'm surprised I haven't been able to find the info here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.247.167.104 (talk) 04:33, 31 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Larry Wall does not continue to oversee further development of Perl

Wall continues to oversee further development of Perl and serves as the benevolent dictator for life of the Perl project.

Larry Wall has not posted anything to the Perl5 Porters mailing list since 2008. [1]

After twelve years of making no contributions whatsoever, it cannot be said that Larry Wall continues to oversee further development of Perl. SimplifyYourCSS (talk) 07:16, 10 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've gone ahead and removed it. SimplifyYourCSS (talk) 08:09, 13 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Three Virtues of a Programmer" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Three Virtues of a Programmer has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 December 19 § Three Virtues of a Programmer until a consensus is reached. Tea2min (talk) 09:53, 19 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]