Thursday, August 26, 2010

View from the Other Side: Larry Wall and Perl

In CPSC 311 this term, we'll be exploring design axes of programming languages.  This is an incredibly powerful way to view languages, but it is not the One True Way.

So, when you feel like some counterculture, try Larry Wall, Perl's designer.  Rather than categorizing languages by their design choices around functions, scope, continuations, evaluation, state, and so forth.  He scatters them by their "whipuptitude" and "manipulexity".  (But, do note that in that presentation, he does mention lexical (static) scoping!)

Cheers,

Steve

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