Larry Wall Quotes

If you're talking about Java in particular, Python is about the best fit you can get amongst all the other languages. Yet the funny thing is, from a language point of view, JavaScript has a lot in common with Python, but it is sort of a restricted subset.

I note that the Python folks still think they like JPython. I wonder how long that will last?

Java is C++ without the guns, clubs and knives.

Now, it's my belief that Python is a lot easier than to teach to students programming and teach them C or C++ or Java at the same time because all the details of the languages are so much harder. Other scripting languages really don't work very well there either.

From the viewpoint of what you can do, therefore, languages do differ - but the differences are limited. For example, Python and Ruby provide almost the same power to the programmer.

After all, C++ isn't a perfect match for Java's design aims either.

Even if I think in English, it's more a language of acting than French.

People are still crazy about Python after twenty-five years, which I find hard to believe.

The main languages out of which web applications are built - whether it's Perl or Python or PHP or any of the other languages - those are all open source languages. So the infrastructure of the web is open source... the web as we know it is completely dependent on open source.

This evolution may compromise Java's claim of being simpler than C++, but my guess is that the effort will make Java a better language than it is today.

In my daily work, I work on very large, complex, distributed systems built out of many Python modules and packages. The focus is very similar to what you find, for example, in Java and, in general, in systems programming languages.

Many people tend to look at programming styles and languages like religions: if you belong to one, you cannot belong to others. But this analogy is another fallacy.

Whenever the C++ language designers had two competing ideas as to how they should solve some problem, they said, "OK, we'll do them both". So the language is too baroque for my taste.

Take Lisp, you know its the most beautiful language in the world -- at least up until Haskell came along.

There are more useful systems developed in languages deemed awful than in languages praised for being beautiful - many more.

Modern programs must handle Unicode —Python has excellent support for Unicode, and will keep getting better.

C is declining somewhat in usage compared to C++, and maybe Java, but perhaps even more compared to higher-level scripting languages. It's still fairly strong for the basic system-type things.

[Boxed] Multiple bouncing balls in a box are a metaphor for community. Notice how the escaping balls explode. This is what happens to people who move from Perl to Ruby.

It would've been amazing [to work as programmer]. You're good at numbers, you're good with people, you like to wear shorts in the summertime.

When somebody has learned how to program a computer ... You're joining a group of people who can do incredible things. They can make the computer do anything they can imagine.

Developing a compiler was a logical move; but in matters like this, you don't run against logic - you run against people who can't change their minds.

There's many scripting languages in the world, Perl is a little bit special because it is based more on some ideas from the way natural languages work.

More good code has been written in languages denounced as "bad'' than in languages proclaimed "wonderful'' - much more.

There are people who actually like programming. I dont understand why they like programming.

Quite frankly, even if the choice of C were to do *nothing* but keep the C++ programmers out, that in itself would be a huge reason to use C.