[On finding a large firework called "Python"] Showing a remarkable similarity to the programming
language bearing the same name, the Python firework was easy to light and produced spectacular results.
"Does Perl have a firework? NOOOOOOOO!" I said.
If Perl had a firework, it would probably have 4 different fuses, 2 electric starters, a solar mirror so
you could light it without matches, and three different kinds of flint. I'd probably still be trying to figure it
out.
A C firework would produce a louder, faster explosion and blow off my foot. C++'s firework would be even
more spectacular, taking off my leg and killing some of the children around me.
— Joey deVilla
And there are some who ask, why I do Python and C but shy away from Perl. I'm too dumb to comprehend a language that
comes with its own Periodic Table of Operators (and has over 100 of them).
—Jonas M Luster
"I was wondering if there's any kind of definitive nickname for Perl programmers, the way we call
ourselves Pythonistas?" - Aahz Maruch
"Masochists." -Daniel Klein
— Some Python Newsgroup, though I forget which
Frankly, I'd rather not try to compete with Perl in the areas where Perl is best — it's a battle that's
impossible to win, and I don't think it is a good idea to strive for the number of obscure options and shortcuts
that Perl has acquired through the years.
— Guido van Rossum
[Perl] combines all the worst aspects of C and Lisp: a billion different sublanguages in one monolithic executable.
It combines the power of C with the readability of PostScript.
— Jamie Zawinski
About the use of language: it is impossible to sharpen a pencil with a blunt axe. It is equally vain to try to do it
with ten blunt axes instead.
— E.W.Dijkstra (18th June 1975, Perl did not exist at the time), quoted by Michael
Hudson when ripping Perl
It's not that perl programmers are idiots, it's that the language rewards idiotic behavior in a way that no other
language or tool has ever done.
— Erik Naggum (comp.lang.lisp)
The ultimate laziness is not using Perl. That saves you so much work you wouldn't believe it if you had never tried
it.
— Erik Naggum (comp.lang.lisp)
Two decades later, well-known hacker Henry Spencer described the Perl scripting language as a "Swiss-Army chainsaw",
intending to convey his evaluation of the language as exceedingly powerful but ugly and noisy and prone to belch
noxious fumes.
— The Jargon File
...but I guess there are some things that are so gross you just have to forget, or it'll destroy something within
you. perl is the first such thing I have known.
— Erik Naggum (comp.lang.lisp)