PERSON
Larry Wall
Larry Wall
- Larry Wall is a computer programmer, linguist, and author, best known as the creator of the Perl programming language.
Relationship and Collaboration
- I have had a long and close working relationship with Larry, acting as his "number 2" for the Perl project. My books, such as the Llama book (Learning Perl), were instrumental in bringing Larry's creation to a wider public audience.
- In October 1998, we captured historic moments of Larry greeting students at Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI), preserved in the Flickr album Trips/1998/98-10-SanJose/LarryWall.
Public Achievements
- Perl: Created the language in 1987. He is the co-author of the seminal Camel book (Programming Perl).
- Patch: Created the widely used
patchutility. - Awards: Received the inaugural Free Software Foundation Award for the Advancement of Free Software in 1998.
Background and Influence
- His background in linguistics heavily shaped the design of Perl. He famously coined the "three virtues of a programmer": laziness, impatience, and hubris.
What links here
These facts are as Randal recalls them, but much time has passed for most of this. If you find a factual error, please email realmerlyn@gmail.com.