Larry Wall

Larry Wall (born September 27, 1954) is a programmer, linguist, and author, most widely known for his creation of the Perl programming language in 1987. Wall earned his bachelor's degree from Seattle Pacific University in 1976. Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (600x800, 107 KB) Source: http://domm. ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (600x800, 107 KB) Source: http://domm. ... September 27 is the 270th day of the year (271st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1954 (MCMLIV) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 3 programmers. ... The following is a list of linguists, those who study linguistics. ... An author is the person who creates a written work, such as a book, story, article or the like. ... Perl is a dynamic programming language created by Larry Wall and first released in 1987. ... A programming language is an artificial language that can be used to control the behavior of a machine, particularly a computer. ... A bachelors degree (Artium Baccalaureus, A.B. or B.A.) is usually an undergraduate academic degree awarded for a course or major that generally lasts for three, four, or in some cases and countries, five or six years. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

Wall is the author of the rn Usenet client and the nearly universally used patch program. He has won the International Obfuscated C Code Contest twice and was the recipient of the first Free Software Foundation Award for the Advancement of Free Software in 1998. Alternate uses, see rn (disambiguation) rn (short for Read News) is a program for reading Usenet news written by Larry Wall. ... A news client, or news reader, is an application program that reads articles on Usenet (generally known as newsgroup), either directly from a news servers disks or via the Network News Transfer Protocol. ... patch is a Unix program that updates text files according to instructions contained in a separate file, called a patch file. ... The International Obfuscated C Code Contest (abbr. ... The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a non-profit corporation founded in October 1985 by Richard Stallman to support the free software movement (free as in freedom), and in particular the GNU project. ... The Free Software Foundation Award for the Advancement of Free Software is annually presented to a person who has made a great contribution to the progress and development of free software, through activities that accord with the spirit of free software. ...

Beyond his technical skills, Wall is known for his wit and often ironic sense of humor, which he displays in the comments to his source code or on Usenet. For example: "We all agree on the necessity of compromise. We just can't agree on when it's necessary to compromise." Source code (commonly just source or code) is any series of statements written in some human-readable computer programming language. ... Usenet (USEr NETwork) is a global, distributed Internet discussion system that evolved from a general purpose UUCP network of the same name. ...

Larry Wall has linguistics qualifications, which were useful in the design of Perl. He is the co-author of Programming Perl (often referred to as the Camel Book), which is the definitive resource for Perl programmers. He has edited the Perl Cookbook. His books are published by O'Reilly. Linguistics is the scientific study of language. ... Programming Perl book cover Programming Perl, best known as the camel book among hackers, is a book about writing programs or scripts using the Perl programming language. ...  This book-related article is a stub. ... Programming Perl is a classic OReilly book. ...

Wall's Christian faith has influenced some of the terminology of Perl, such as the name itself, a biblical reference to the "Pearl of great price" (Matthew 13:46). [1] Similar references are the function name bless, and the organization of Perl 6 design documents with categories such as apocalypse and exegesis. Wall has also alluded to his faith when he has spoken at conferences, including a rather straightforward statement of his beliefs at the August, 1997 Perl Conference and a discussion of Pilgrim's Progress at the YAPC (Yet Another Perl Conference) in June, 2000. Christianity is a monotheistic[1] religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented in the New Testament. ... The Gospel of Matthew (literally, according to Matthew; Greek, Κατά Μαθθαίον or Κατά Ματθαίον) is one of the four Gospel accounts of the New Testament. ... Look up Apocalypse in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Exegesis (from the Greek to lead out) involves an extensive and critical interpretation of a text, especially of a holy scripture, such as of the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, the Talmud, the Midrash, the Quran, etc. ... The Pilgrims Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come by John Bunyan (published 1678) is an allegorical novel. ... Yet Another Perl Conference, usually given as the abbreviation YAPC, are conferences discussing the Perl computer programming language, usually organised under the auspices of the Yet Another Society, a non-profit corporation for the advancement of collaborative efforts in computer and information sciences. External links YAPC YAPC Europe {stub} ...

While in graduate school, Wall and his wife were studying linguistics with the intention afterwards of finding an unwritten language, perhaps in Africa, and creating a writing system for it. They would then use this new writing system to translate various texts into the language, among them the Bible. Due to health reasons these plans were cancelled, and they remained in the U.S., where Larry instead joined the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory after he finished grad school. A graduate school or grad school is a school that awards advanced degrees, with the general requirement that students must have earned an undergraduate (bachelors) degree. ... Linguistics is the scientific study of language. ... A world map showing the continent of Africa. ... Writing systems of the world today. ... This Gutenberg Bible is displayed by the United States Library of Congress. ... The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is an agency of the United States Government, responsible for that nations public space program. ... The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), in La Cañada Flintridge, near Los Angeles, California, USA, builds and operates unmanned spacecraft for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). ...

Wall continues to oversee further development of Perl and serves as the "Benevolent Dictator for Life" of the Perl project^{[citation needed]}. His role in Perl is best conveyed by the so-called 2 Rules, taken from the official Perl documentation:

1. Larry is always by definition right about how Perl should behave. This means he has final veto power on the core functionality.
2. Larry is allowed to change his mind about any matter at a later date, regardless of whether he previously invoked Rule 1.

Got that? Larry is always right, even when he was wrong.

See also

Free software Portal

• Perl
• List of programmers
• List of computer scientists

Image File history File links Portal. ... Perl is a dynamic programming language created by Larry Wall and first released in 1987. ... This is a list of programmers notable for their contributions to software, either as original author or architect, or for later additions. ... . ...

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Larry Wall

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• Larry Wall's personal home page
• Slightly Skeptical View on Larry Wall and Perl (Softpanorama Larry Wall's page)
• Authoritative list of Larry Wall quotes
• Perl, the first Postmodern Language
• Larry Walls usenet posts

• State of the Onion keynotes: 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

Please note that as the State of the Onion speeches are often primarily based on visual humour, the transcripts may seem confusing or non-sensical. Image File history File links Wikiquote-logo-en. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Image File history File links Larry_Wall. ... Image File history File links Sound-icon. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ... June 27 is the 178th day of the year (179th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 187 days remaining. ... Image File history File links Sound-icon. ... The State of the Onion is the name for a yearly keynote-style summary on the progress of the Perl computer language, given by Perls creator, Larry Wall. ...