Who is Larry Wall? Many of you may not know who he is.
He is the father of Perl, a programming language that is more popular among system administrators. He created Perl in mid-1980s. You may never hear his work, but there is something we can learn from his life as a programmer and innovator.
Today I want to share the three attributes of innovators, inspired by Larry Wall as he is mentioned and described in the book Learning Perl, by Randal L. Schwartz, Tom Phoenix, & brian d foy (I don’t have any idea why the last name is written in lower case).
1) Be Lazy
Some people are so diligent working on the same thing over and over. Larry is not following that status quo, he is lazy. Larry was trying to produce some reports from a Usenet news (some kind of discussion forum which is a precursor of different web forums available nowadays). Being the lazy programmer as he is, he decided to overkill the problem with a generic solution, where he can also use it in at least one other place. This is the laziness that he also puts in the three virtues of programmers.
Laziness – The quality that makes you go to great effort to reduce overall energy expenditure. It makes you write labor-saving programs that other people will find useful, and document what you wrote so you don’t have to answer so many questions about it.
Larry Wall, Randal L. Schwartz and Tom Christiansen (Programming Perl)
2) Be Greedy
Larry created Perl because he wanted the advantages of both sides of programming language. On one side, it’s the low level programming (C or C++) which is hard to write, but fast and unlimited. On the other side, it’s high level programming (”shell” programming) that slow and limited but easier to code. Larry is not satisfied with either one of them. He chose to create something that will incorporate the strength of those two. And Perl is born, easy, nearly unlimited, mostly fast and kind of ugly.
3) Be Ugly
Larry knew very well what he want to create through Perl. He chose to trade off certain thing for the goal he pursued. He knew that he could not please all people. When he had to make a trade off between features that make programmer’s life easier but make it more difficult for student to learn, he will pick the programmer’s side.
Perl has many conveniences that let programmers save time. And that results in how Perl looks ugly for the beginners. If you’re not an experienced Perl programmer, you will need some time to understand all the code and shortcuts. Perl is symbolized as a camel. Camel is kind of ugly too, but they work hard. Camel gets the job done even in a tough conditions like the desert, even if it looks ugly and smells worse, or sometimes even spit at you.
Concluding Thought
The three virtues of programmers (laziness, pride, and hubris/excessive pride) have the similar characteristics to those I’m sharing above.
Yes, it’s not all the attributes needed as an innovator, but they exactly represent the attributes that not many people consider as virtue. Larry has turned the limitations to advantages. They have become something beneficial to Larry’s life as programmer and innovator.
Despite of the laziness, Larry took pride and believed in his solution. He worked hard at it. He introduced the Perl to the community of users. And that is followed by a number of feedbacks and questions. Larry did not grow weary on responding but he consistently grew his work on Perl.
Now Perl is widely recognize, installed in nearly every system in use today, thousands of pages of online documentation, dozens of books and several main streams of newsgroups and discussions. It’s the fruit of what Larry Wall has worked in.
Innovating,
Robert
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13 Comments
Nicole Price
on 29th Jun, 09 10:06pm
This is beauty of wisdom. We can all get wiser by hindsight at someone else’s trial and error methods which succeeded. Statistically, repeating the same process, is unlikely to work for other projects.
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Robert A.
on 30th Jun, 09 05:06pm
Thanks Nicole, here is one person we all can learn from =)
Robert
bardy
on 30th Jun, 09 08:06pm
This is called a very well maintainned strategy. A very well said by larry wall to be lazy for reducing energy expenditure and to be greedy as for oneself and only wise persons can do these all.
used tires
on 2nd Jul, 09 10:07am
These are three things that many people don’t have difficulty becoming… haha. You are right, I actually had no idea who lary was until I read this article. Yes, lol he has turned his limitations into advantages… they are extremely advantageous for his career choice.
Till then,
Jean
Robert A.
on 3rd Jul, 09 12:07am
Bardy, I think Larry knows what he wants. He is committed to make Perl works. Indeed a wise person.
Robert A.
on 3rd Jul, 09 12:07am
Hi Jean, yeah, i think it’s called lazy, greedy, and ugly with purpose =) the purpose makes it advantageous.
Robert
game-girl
on 6th Jul, 09 01:07pm
He is really a wise man from whom we can learn.Everybody can learn different things which only he needs.
Mold Removal Tampa
on 7th Jul, 09 05:07pm
Hey Robert you posted quite impressive inspirational post, as Larry created Perl by useful characteristics of two languages it’s totally great, yes some time positive laziness did great job for us.
fourposter beds
on 21st Jul, 09 12:07pm
It such very inspiring stuff which you have provided in your post. I was really unknown about such great person. Thanks for introducing him.
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Afriza N. Arief
on 25th Jul, 09 07:07am
Wow, great article!
Tipsy
on 21st Aug, 09 04:08pm
There is something about those advices. The first thing to remember when trying to achieve success in any branch, that you never will satisfy everyone. There will always someone that can say: wow man, everything you do is crap. And we have to respect such voices but not necessarily agree with them
Being a little bit ugly could do the job 
About lazy I mostly agree, but being too lazy is also not so good idea after all 
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Hypnotist
on 1st Sep, 09 08:09pm
Amazing post. I like these three inspiration lesson of larry. Thanks for information.
Jeremy
on 8th Sep, 09 05:09pm
I like all the inspirational thoughts decribed here. Thanks for sharing with us!