Larry Wall Quotes

The problem is that it is difficult to translate.

There has never been an unexpectedly short debugging period in the history of computers.

I think literary theory has not been terribly good for English studies in a while. It's not that theory isn't interesting, but it isn't about books, or the idiosyncrasies and complexities of putting language together.

As problems have grown more complex, leaders have struggled to find the language to discuss them clearly, credibly and at the right emotional amplitude. Nonplussed and tongue-tied, politicians give themselves over to message gurus … who peddle the notion that poll-tested words — honed and targeted with scientific precision — can pick the lock of public opinion.

Words," he said, "is oh such a twitch-tickling problem to me all my life.

Every solution of a problem raises new unsolved problems.

The barrier to change is not too little caring; it is too much complexity. To turn caring into action, we need to see a problem, see a solution, and see the impact. But complexity blocks all three steps.

The most disastrous thing that you can ever learn is your first programming language.

C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot; C++ makes it harder, but when you do it blows your whole leg off.

Irreducible complexity is a problem for Darwinian evolution. Whenever we see these complex functional systems we realise that they have to be designed.

The English language is more complex than calculus because numbers don't have nuances.

APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection.

Economics is like the Dutch language - I'm told it makes sense, but I have my doubts.

Yakka foob mog. Grug pubbawup zink wattoom gazork. Chumble spuzz. I love loopholes.

The central problem of C and C++ is that they require programmers to do their own memory management

If in physics there's something you don't understand, you can always hide behind the uncharted depths of nature. You can always blame God. You didn't make it so complex yourself. But if your program doesn't work, there is no one to hide behind. You cannot hide behind an obstinate nature. If it doesn't work, you've messed up.

Oh, God, I don't know what's more difficult, life or the English language.

Programmers are always surrounded by complexity; we cannot avoid it.... If our basic tool, the language in which we design and code our programs, is also complicated, the language itself becomes part of the problem rather than part of its solution.

We are generalists. You can't draw neat lines around planet-wide problems. Planetology is a cut-and-fit science.

I have tried (I am not sure how successfully) to write plain tales. I dare not say they are simple; there is not a simple page, a simple word, on earth -\-\ for all pages, all words, predicate the universe, whose most notorious attribute is its complexity.

Forget the complaints against complexity; instead, complain about confusion.

Once a problem is solved, its simplicity is amazing.

With the subsequent strong support from cybernetics , the concepts of systems thinking and systems theory became integral parts of the established scientific language, and led to numerous new methodologies and applications -- systems engineering, systems analysis, systems dynamics, and so on.

Maybe language is kind, giving us these double meanings. Maybe it's trying to teach us a lesson, that we can always be two things at once.

Simplicity is no longer presented as a virtue. The value of complex and difficult language has been preached with such insistence that the public has begun to believe the lack of clarity must be a sign of artistic talent.