So many computer languages try to force you into one way of thinking and Perl is very much the opposite of that approach. It's kind of like a, well, sometimes Perl has been called the Swiss army chainsaw of the internet, but it's more like a Swiss army machine shop. It really gives you a lot of tools, some of which are dangerous, but it lets you get your job done very quickly.

We all agree on the necessity of compromise. We just can't agree on when it's necessary to compromise.

And besides, if Perl really takes off in the Windows space, I think the rest of us would just as soon have a double-agent within ActiveState.

Now, I'm not the only language designer with irrationalities. You can think of some languages to go with some of these things.

My arthritic pinkies are already starting to ache just thinking about ||||=.

You don't have to know the whole language to use it usefully, you can do baby talk, you can do grown up talk, you can cuss in it, you can write poetry, you can be a playwright, is sort of the idea.

The trouble with being quoted a lot is that it makes other people think you're quoting yourself when in fact you're merely repeating yourself.