Larry Wall Quotes

We all love Linux, but it's also a fact that some people might not be able to migrate.

Linux is its own worst enemy: it's splintered, it has different distributions, it's too complex to run for most people.

Any editing, software work, and mail is done in this exported Plan 9.

Computers are hierarchical. We have a desktop and hierarchical files which have to mean everything.

We have persistant objects, they're called files.

This is your silly web browser doing that. The file is correctly named.

When I'm back at my computer, and/or have more time to deal with the project than when I made the initial notes, I transcribe them into a Scrivener document. I create a new Scrivener file for every project, right at the start, and make a folder for these transcribed notes; when entering them, I title each note document according to date.

An unlimited-length file name is a file. The content of a file is its own best name.

My struggle is to bring 'life' in 'file'.

As I get ready to buy a new computer, I'm stunned at all the many micro drafts, of different chapters and scenes and whatnot, that litter the hard drive.

Besides, REAL computers have a rename system call.

Yes, I am a quantum mechanic! Those darn quantum computers break all the time.

Owning a computer without programming is like having a kitchen and using only the microwave oven

In general, they do what you want, unless you want consistency.

The fact that ACPI was designed by a group of monkeys high on LSD, and is some of the worst designs in the industry obviously makes running it at any point pretty damn ugly.

He could hardly imagine anymore what his life would be without the weight of his hidden knowledge. He'd come to think of it as a kind of penance. It was self-destructive, he could see that, but that was the way things were. People smoked, they jumped out of airplanes, they drank too much and got into their cars and drove without seat belts.

You've got to stop letting women slip drugs into your mouth, Dex, it's unhygienic. And dangerous. One day it'll be a cyanide capsule.

I have never bought myself a computer or a phone, but guys in my life have bought them for me, for whatever reason. So now I have them.

We already knew that kids learned computer technology more easily than adults, It is as if children were waiting all these centuries for someone to invent their native language.

I discovered what I call the Bill Gates effect. That is, the more successful you are, the uglier you get.

History is littered with great firms that got killed by disruption. Of course, the personal computer, a technology that first took root as a toy, got Digital Equipment Corporation. Kodak missed the boat for a long time on digital imaging. Sony was slow to get MP3 technology. Microsoft doesn't know what to do with open source software. And so on.

A computer and a cat are somewhat alike - they both purr, and like to be stroked, and spend a lot of the day motionless. They also have secrets they don't necessarily share.

A computer is a machine for constructing mappings from input to output.

I don't need a hard disk in my computer if I can get to the server faster... carrying around these non-connected computers is byzantine by comparison.

It was a black and white only computer at the time, but it kept me fascinated.