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.

Over the long term, symbiosis is more useful than parasitism. More fun, too. Ask any mitochondria.

There is, however, a strange, musty smell in the air that reminds me of something...hmm...yes...I've got it...there's a VMS nearby, or I'm a Blit.

If someone stinks, view it as a reason to help them, not a reason to avoid them.

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

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

We can debug relationships, but it's always good policy to consider the people themselves to be features. People get annoyed when you try to debug them.