Larry Wall

“One of the very basic ideas of Post-Modernism is rejection of arbitrary power structures. Different people are sensitive to different kinds of power structures.”

“When I announced the development of Perl 6, I said it was going to be a community design. I designed Perl, myself. It's limited by my own brain power. So I wanted Perl 6 to be a community de...”

“I'm just paid to do whatever I want to do. Some of the time it's development, and some of the time it's just goofing off.”

“I still drive my 1977 Honda Accord. The paint is almost all worn off. It's still running.”

“The Harvard Law states: Under controlled conditions of light, temperature, humidity, and nutrition, the organism will do as it damn well pleases.”

“The three chief virtues of a programmer are: Laziness, Impatience and Hubris.”

“For me, writing is a love-hate relationship.”

“I think computer science, by and large, is still stuck in the Modern age.”

“Post-Modernism was a reaction against Modernism. It came quite early to music and literature, and a little later to architecture. And I think it's still coming to computer science.”

“I think operating systems work best if they're free and open. Particular applications are more likely to be proprietary.”

“I think software patents are a bad idea. Many patents are given for trivial inventions.”

“If you're a large corporation, you can afford to pay the money to register patents, but if you're an individual like me, you can't.”

“I want people to use Perl. I want to be a positive ingredient of the world and make my American history. So, whatever it takes to give away my software and get it used, that's great.”

“Perl was designed to work more like a natural language. It's a little more complicated but there are more shortcuts, and once you learned the language, it's more expressive.”

“The world has become a larger place. The universe has been expanding, and Perl's been expanding along with the universe.”

“There is no schedule. We are all volunteers, so we get it done when we get it done. Perl 5 still works fine, and we plan to take the right amount of time on Perl 6.”