FW: Finding your flame from 1994

Dan Kohn (dan@teledesic.com)
Sun, 5 Apr 1998 19:59:42 -0700


At dinner at Blowfish with Larry Wall last weekend (arranged by Rohit
Khare), I explained that I used to read comp.lang.perl back in '94
specifically to observe his brilliance. In particular, I recalled a
Cyrano-derived flame he constructed, which showed not only how brilliant
he is, but also his penchant for setting community rules in the
newsgroup.

Larry, also remembered the post, and after searching his hard drive for
it in vain, he used his Metricom Ricochet modem to log on to his PC back
in Silicon Valley. Unfortunately, he had the Unicode CD-ROM in the
drive rather than his old mail archive, and so was unable to pull up the
post at the restaurant dinner table.

He came, though of course, a day and a half later.

- dan

--
Daniel Kohn <dan@teledesic.com>
Teledesic LLC
+1-425-602-6222 (voice)   602-0002 (fax)
http://www.teledesic.com 

-----Original Message----- From: larry@wall.org [mailto:larry@wall.org] Sent: Sunday, March 29, 1998 2:47 PM To: dan@teledesic.com Cc: larry@wall.org Subject: Re: Finding your flame from 1994

Dan Kohn writes: : I enjoyed the conversation at Blowfish Friday night, and appreciate you : taking the time to come out with us. If you can find it, I'd love to : see that flame you were looking for from 1994.

Found it. See below.

: Also, you might want to check Teledesic's web pages. We're launching : hundreds of satellites into space to build an Internet-in-the-Sky, so : it's a pretty neat company. : : You have an open invitation to a free dinner whenever you're next in : Seattle.

Thanks. I'm sure I'll see you again sometime. It was a lot of fun gabbing.

Larry

Article 25374 of comp.lang.perl: Xref: netlabs comp.lang.perl:25374 comp.lang.lisp:8127 comp.lang.scheme:6578 comp.lang.python:1187 Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl,comp.lang.lisp,comp.lang.scheme,comp.lang.python Path: netlabs!lwall From: lwall@netlabs.com (Larry Wall) Subject: Re: PERL as a first programming language? Message-ID: <1994Jul28.193540.9498@netlabs.com> Organization: NetLabs, Inc. References: <RSANDERS.94Jul27011237@hrothgar.mindspring.com> <1994Jul27.192413.6978@netlabs.com> <OZ.94Jul27222140@nexus.yorku.ca> Date: Thu, 28 Jul 1994 19:35:40 GMT Lines: 142

In article <OZ.94Jul27222140@nexus.yorku.ca> oz@nexus.yorku.ca (ozan s. yigit) writes: : lwall: : ... : I think people will latch rather quickly onto the Perl5ism ... : : what choice do they have?

Ozan, Ozan. You're such a great straight man. I feel like Cyrano on the subject of noses. I can't choose among all the bales of hay, so I'll just let you choose your own favorite answer.

The Calm Answer

The same choices they've always had, and more.

The Snotty Answer

What a snot!

The Zen

What is the sound of one person choosing?

The Sarcastic

Oooh, I'm sooo sorry. I take it all back.

The Good Old Boy

Hey, ease off on the caffeine, buddy.

The Mindless Aphorism

Perl programmers have the choice of freedom, and freedom of choice.

The Light Witticism

Now, now. Let's not confuse Occam's Razor with Ozan's.

The Veiled Insult

People always have the choice of remaining ignorant.

The Slam Dunk

They can go with me, or they can go with you, or they can go nowhere. But gee, the last two options are the same.

The Tolkien Allusion

"The choice is yours, to go or stay."

The Obvious Biblical Allusion

"There's a time for everything under the sun..."

The Obscure Biblical Allusion

"And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up, and said unto them, Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe."

The Poetical Allusion

"Two roads diverged in a wood..."

The Personal Allusion

They've got lots of choices, including even SDBM.

The Flame

[FLAME ON!!!!!!!!] How DARE you quote me out of context like that?!?!? You make me sound like another Hitler or $omething!!! Just shut the fuck up, okay?! [flame off] By the way, how's the wife and kids?

The Imminent Death of the Net Predicted

With content-free messages like that, it's no wonder the net is going downhill. What we really need is an administrative solution to this problem. Now if we could just get some of the backbone SAs to agree...

The Psychobabble

What you're saying is valid, but you know, you really have to let me be me.

The Flower Child

Peace, man. Got any good stuff?

The Rodney King

Why can't we all just get along?

The Sergeant Friday

You have the right to remain silent.

The Quote Bait

Unlike most computer languages, Perl is both pro-choice and pro-life.

The Paternal Patter

That's okay, Ozan, I understand where you're coming from. I once went through the rebellious stage you're going through, but eventually I settled down and started getting some real work done. These things just take time. Be patient with yourself.

The Philosophical Discourse

While none of us can, in fact, choose anything freely, we must make our own meaning out of the absurd by pretending that our choices do matter. In this way we authenticate ourselves; we demonstrate our existence to everyone who cares, which is, of course, nobody but ourselves. In this we are the elohim.

The Direct Answer

They can choose to use the new feature, or they can choose to program in the subset of Perl 5 corresponding to Perl 4, which many people have oddly enough found to be perfectly adequate.

The Oversimplification

Perl is about nothing BUT choice.

The Infinite Recursion

Ozan, Ozan. You're such a great straight man. I feel like Cyrano...

The Best Answer

[This space intentionally left blank.]

Love, Larry