Laziness, Perl, and Larry Wall
Xah Lee, 20021124
In the unix community there's quite a large confusion and wishful
thinking about the word laziness. In this post, i'd like to make some
clarifications.
American Heritage Dictionary third edition defines laziness as:
“Resistant to work or exertion; disposed to idleness.”
When the sorcerer Larry Wall said “The three chief virtues of a
programmer are: Laziness, Impatience and Hubris”, he used the word
“laziness” to loosely imply “natural disposition that results in being
economic”. As you can see now, “Resistant to work or exertion” is
clearly not positive and not a virtue, but “natural disposition that
results in economy” is a good thing if true.
When Larry Wall said one of programer's virtue is laziness, he wants
the unix morons to conjure up in their brains the following
proposition as true: “Resistant to work or exertion is a natural human
disposition and such disposition actually results behaviors being
economic”. This statement may be true, which means that human laziness
may be intuitively understood from evolution. However, this statement
is a proposition on all human beings, and is not some “virtue” that
can be applied to a group of people such as programers.
Demagogue Larry Wall is smart in creating a confusion combined with
wishful thinking. By making subtle statements like this, he semi-
intentionally confuses average programers to think that it is OK to be
not thorough, it is OK to be sloppy, it is OK to disparage computer
science. (like the incompetent unixers and perlers are)
Can you see the evil and its harm in not understanding things clearly?
This laziness quote by Wall is a tremendous damage to the computing
industry. It is a source among others that spurs much bad fashion
trends and fuckups in the industry. It is more damaging than any
single hack or virus. It is social brain-washing at work, like the
diamond company De Beers' tremendously successful sales slogan: “A
Diamond is Forever” or Apple's grammatically fantastic “Think
Different”.
The most fundamental explanation of why Larry Wall's sophistry are
damaging to society is simply this: What he said is not true and they
are widely spread and conceived as worthwhile. This is a form of mis-
information. This is a manifestation of Love without Knowledge as i
expounded before, with subtle but disastrous consequences (already).
[DISCLAIMER: all mentions of real persons are opinion only.]
----
This post is archived at:
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/perl_laziness.html
Xah
···@xahlee.org
∑ http://xahlee.org/
You fail to understand the difference between passive laziness and
active laziness. Passive laziness is what most people have. It's
active laziness that is the virtue. It's the desire to go out and /
make sure/ that you can be lazy in the future by spending just a
little time writing a script now. It's thinking about time
economically and acting on it.
Daniel Gee <······@gmail.com> wrote:
+---------------
| You fail to understand the difference between passive laziness and
| active laziness. Passive laziness is what most people have. It's
| active laziness that is the virtue. It's the desire to go out and /
| make sure/ that you can be lazy in the future by spending just a
| little time writing a script now. It's thinking about time
| economically and acting on it.
+---------------
Indeed. See Robert A. Heinlein's short story (well, actually just
a short section of his novel "Time Enough For Love: The Lives of
Lazarus Long") entitled "The Tale of the Man Who Was Too Lazy To
Fail". It's about a man who hated work so much that he worked
very, *very* hard so he wouldn't have to do any (and succeeded).
-Rob
-----
Rob Warnock <····@rpw3.org>
627 26th Avenue <URL:http://rpw3.org/>
San Mateo, CA 94403 (650)572-2607
From: Torben Ægidius Mogensen
Subject: Re: is laziness a programer's virtue?
Date:
Message-ID: <7z8xcs1s8q.fsf@app-5.diku.dk>
····@rpw3.org (Rob Warnock) writes:
> Daniel Gee <······@gmail.com> wrote:
> +---------------
> | You fail to understand the difference between passive laziness and
> | active laziness. Passive laziness is what most people have. It's
> | active laziness that is the virtue. It's the desire to go out and /
> | make sure/ that you can be lazy in the future by spending just a
> | little time writing a script now. It's thinking about time
> | economically and acting on it.
> +---------------
>
> Indeed. See Robert A. Heinlein's short story (well, actually just
> a short section of his novel "Time Enough For Love: The Lives of
> Lazarus Long") entitled "The Tale of the Man Who Was Too Lazy To
> Fail". It's about a man who hated work so much that he worked
> very, *very* hard so he wouldn't have to do any (and succeeded).
You can also argue that the essence of progress is someone saying
"Hey, there must be an easier way to do this!".
Torben
On Apr 15, 6:25 pm, "Xah Lee" <····@xahlee.org> wrote:
> Laziness, Perl, and Larry Wall
>
> Xah Lee, 20021124
>
> In the unix community there's quite a large confusion and wishful
> thinking about the word laziness. In this post, i'd like to make some
> clarifications.
>
> American Heritage Dictionary third edition defines laziness as:
> “Resistant to work or exertion; disposed to idleness.”
>
> When the sorcerer Larry Wall said “The three chief virtues of a
> programmer are: Laziness, Impatience and Hubris”, he used the word
> “laziness” to loosely imply “natural disposition that results in being
> economic”. As you can see now, “Resistant to work or exertion” is
> clearly not positive and not a virtue, but “natural disposition that
> results in economy” is a good thing if true.
>
> When Larry Wall said one of programer's virtue is laziness, he wants
> the unix morons to conjure up in their brains the following
> proposition as true: “Resistant to work or exertion is a natural human
> disposition and such disposition actually results behaviors being
> economic”. This statement may be true, which means that human laziness
> may be intuitively understood from evolution. However, this statement
> is a proposition on all human beings, and is not some “virtue” that
> can be applied to a group of people such as programers.
>
> Demagogue Larry Wall is smart in creating a confusion combined with
> wishful thinking. By making subtle statements like this, he semi-
> intentionally confuses average programers to think that it is OK to be
> not thorough, it is OK to be sloppy, it is OK to disparage computer
> science. (like the incompetent unixers and perlers are)
>
> Can you see the evil and its harm in not understanding things clearly?
> This laziness quote by Wall is a tremendous damage to the computing
> industry. It is a source among others that spurs much bad fashion
> trends and fuckups in the industry. It is more damaging than any
> single hack or virus. It is social brain-washing at work, like the
> diamond company De Beers' tremendously successful sales slogan: “A
> Diamond is Forever” or Apple's grammatically fantastic “Think
> Different”.
>
> The most fundamental explanation of why Larry Wall's sophistry are
> damaging to society is simply this: What he said is not true and they
> are widely spread and conceived as worthwhile. This is a form of mis-
> information. This is a manifestation of Love without Knowledge as i
> expounded before, with subtle but disastrous consequences (already).
>
> [DISCLAIMER: all mentions of real persons are opinion only.]
>
> ----
> This post is archived at:http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/perl_laziness.html
>
> Xah
> ····@xahlee.org
> ∑http://xahlee.org/
I like Larry Wall, despite being not a Perl programmer, and when he
secretly subverts the american, protestant working ethos I like him
even better :)
Xah Lee wrote:
> Laziness, Perl, and Larry Wall
> When the sorcerer Larry Wall said “The three chief virtues of a
> programmer are: Laziness, Impatience and Hubris”, he used the word
> “laziness” to loosely imply “natural disposition that results in being
> economic”.
Programming by definition is the process of automating repetitive
actions to reduce the human effort required to perform them. A good
programmer faced with a hard problem always looks for ways to make
his|her job easier by delegating work to a computer. That's what Larry
means. Automation is MUCH more effective than repetition.
--
Dan
www.prairienet.org/~dsb/
From: Torben Ægidius Mogensen
Subject: Re: is laziness a programer's virtue?
Date:
Message-ID: <7zr6qk1xy4.fsf@app-5.diku.dk>
Dan Bensen <··········@cyberspace.net> writes:
> Xah Lee wrote:
>> Laziness, Perl, and Larry Wall
>> When the sorcerer Larry Wall said “The three chief virtues of a
>> programmer are: Laziness, Impatience and Hubris”, he used the word
>> “laziness” to loosely imply “natural disposition that results in being
>> economic”.
>
> Programming by definition is the process of automating repetitive
> actions to reduce the human effort required to perform them. A good
> programmer faced with a hard problem always looks for ways to make
> his|her job easier by delegating work to a computer. That's what
> Larry means. Automation is MUCH more effective than repetition.
Indeed. A programmer is someone who, after doing similar tasks by
hand a few times, writes a program to do it. This extends to
programming tasks, so after writing similar programs a few times, a
(good) programmer will use programming to make writing future similar
programs easier. This can be by abstracting the essence of the task
into library functions so new programs are just sequences of
parameterized calls to these, or it can be by writing a program
generator (such as a parser generator) or it can be by designing a
domain-specific language and writing a compiler or interpreter for
this.
Torben
Xah Lee wrote:
> Laziness, Perl, and Larry Wall
>
> Xah Lee, 20021124
>
> In the unix community there's quite a large confusion and wishful
> thinking about the word laziness. In this post, i'd like to make some
> clarifications.
>
> American Heritage Dictionary third edition defines laziness as:
> “Resistant to work or exertion; disposed to idleness.”
>
> When the sorcerer Larry Wall said “The three chief virtues of a
> programmer are: Laziness, Impatience and Hubris”, he used the word
> “laziness” to loosely imply “natural disposition that results in being
> economic”. As you can see now, “Resistant to work or exertion” is
> clearly not positive and not a virtue, but “natural disposition that
> results in economy” is a good thing if true.
>
> When Larry Wall said one of programer's virtue is laziness, he wants
> the unix morons to conjure up in their brains the following
> proposition as true: “Resistant to work or exertion is a natural human
> disposition and such disposition actually results behaviors being
> economic”. This statement may be true, which means that human laziness
> may be intuitively understood from evolution. However, this statement
> is a proposition on all human beings, and is not some “virtue” that
> can be applied to a group of people such as programers.
Xah, you are losing your sense of humor. Wall listed the usually
pejorative "lazy" as a virtue simply to grab the reader, make them
think, and simply to entertain better. Surely The Great Xah understands
the virtue of flamboyant writing and does not want every word yanked
from context and slid under the microscope for dissection.
kzo
--
http://www.theoryyalgebra.com/
"Algebra is the metaphysics of arithmetic." - John Ray
"As long as algebra is taught in school,
there will be prayer in school." - Cokie Roberts
"Stand firm in your refusal to remain conscious during algebra."
- Fran Lebowitz
"I'm an algebra liar. I figure two good lies make a positive."
- Tim Allen
Dear Ken,
I want to thank you for your spirit in supporting and leading the lisp
community, in spreading lisp the language both in what you have done
technically as well as evangelization, as well as the love and
knowledge attitude towards newsgroup communities in general, in part
thru your numerous replies to my posts in the past years. (as opposed
to, the motherfucking pack of driveling and fuckface ignoramuses that
are predominate personalities in newsgroups, including some of the
fucking asshole intolerant bigwigs in the lisp newsgroup who think
themselves as the holder of justice and goodness (which has
contributed significantly to the stagnation of lisp).)
Thank you.
For those reading this, i also want to mention, that although i think
Perl is a motherfucking language on earth, and its leader and
“inventor” Larry Wall has done massive damage to the computing world,
but Perl the community is in fact very tolerant in general (which is
to Larry's credit), when compared to the motherfucking Pythoners (who
knew SHIT) as well as many of the self-appointed lisp bigwig
characters.
[disclaimer: my statement about Larry Wall is opinion only.]
With Knowledge, and, Love.
Xah
···@xahlee.org
∑ http://xahlee.org/
On Apr 15, 10:36 am, Ken Tilton <····@theoryyalgebra.com> wrote:
> XahLeewrote:
> > Laziness, Perl, and Larry Wall
>
> >XahLee, 20021124
>
> > In the unix community there's quite a large confusion and wishful
> > thinking about the word laziness. In this post, i'd like to make some
> > clarifications.
>
> > American Heritage Dictionary third edition defines laziness as:
> > “Resistant to work or exertion; disposed to idleness.”
>
> > When the sorcerer Larry Wall said “The three chief virtues of a
> > programmer are: Laziness, Impatience and Hubris”, he used the word
> > “laziness” to loosely imply “natural disposition that results in being
> > economic”. As you can see now, “Resistant to work or exertion” is
> > clearly not positive and not a virtue, but “natural disposition that
> > results in economy” is a good thing if true.
>
> > When Larry Wall said one of programer's virtue is laziness, he wants
> > the unix morons to conjure up in their brains the following
> > proposition as true: “Resistant to work or exertion is a natural human
> > disposition and such disposition actually results behaviors being
> > economic”. This statement may be true, which means that human laziness
> > may be intuitively understood from evolution. However, this statement
> > is a proposition on all human beings, and is not some “virtue” that
> > can be applied to a group of people such as programers.
>
> Xah, you are losing your sense of humor. Wall listed the usually
> pejorative "lazy" as a virtue simply to grab the reader, make them
> think, and simply to entertain better. Surely The GreatXahunderstands
> the virtue of flamboyant writing and does not want every word yanked
> from context and slid under the microscope for dissection.
>
> kzo
Xah Lee wrote:
> Dear Ken,
>
> I want to thank you for your spirit in supporting and leading the lisp
> community, in spreading lisp the language both in what you have done
> technically as well as evangelization, as well as the love and
> knowledge attitude towards newsgroup communities in general, in part
> thru your numerous replies to my posts in the past years.
Hey, thx, but to me recommending Lisp is like recommending water to a
life form.
Meanwhile, the last thing anyone can doubt is that you say what you mean
and mean what you say, so all we can say about your detractors is...
> (as opposed
> to, the motherfucking pack of driveling and fuckface ignoramuses that
> are predominate personalities in newsgroups,
...OK, but we know this from long Usenet experience. Reaching
Enlightenment means smiling on these noisemakers and having compassion
for them, for they live in mean, narrow worlds and in attacking you are
only reaching for the sunlight you enjoy, in however their ignorant way.
The nice thing about this compassionate view is that it leaves you
feeling positive and at peace within yourself, whereas the "driveling
and fuckface" thing leaves you feeling negative and attacked. less good,
for my money.
ken
J�rgen Exner wrote:
> Ken Tilton wrote:
>
>>Xah Lee wrote:
>
>
> PLEEEEEASE DO NOT FEED THE TROLL
>
> jue
>
>
I understand that you mean well, but the fact is that the only NG
pollution arising from Xah's posts begins with some people abusing Xah
for perceived trolling and others who feel differenty stepping in to
support his right to post. ie, If you /really/ do not want to see a long
thread, well, don't feed it by saying don't feed it. That works for real
trolls when folks miss that they are trolling and you can draw their
attention to the trollishness, but not when someone is making a
heartfelt post, no matter what you think of it.
hth,kzo
--
http://www.theoryyalgebra.com/
"Algebra is the metaphysics of arithmetic." - John Ray
"As long as algebra is taught in school,
there will be prayer in school." - Cokie Roberts
"Stand firm in your refusal to remain conscious during algebra."
- Fran Lebowitz
"I'm an algebra liar. I figure two good lies make a positive."
- Tim Allen
Ken Tilton <···@theoryyalgebra.com> writes:
> J�rgen Exner wrote:
>>
>> PLEEEEEASE DO NOT FEED THE TROLL
>>
> I understand that you mean well, but the fact is that the only NG
> pollution arising from Xah's posts begins with some people abusing Xah
> for perceived trolling and others who feel differenty stepping in to
> support his right to post.
Which is precisely why Xah cross-posts. His intent is to start a cross-
group argument - the very definition of trolling. He not only admits to
being a troll, he *brags* about it on his web site.
> If you /really/ do not want to see a
> long thread, well, don't feed it by saying don't feed it. That works
> for real trolls when folks miss that they are trolling
That's exactly why J�rgen posted as he did, because you've missed that
Xah is *always* trolling.
> and you can
> draw their attention to the trollishness, but not when someone is
> making a heartfelt post, no matter what you think of it.
Xah hasn't made a heartfelt post in his life. Even if his opinion of Larry
Wall's statements *were* valid, it wouldn't matter - what makes him a troll
is the way he cross-posted it to multiple irrlevant groups in an attempt to
spart an argument over it.
He's done this time and time again. Check his history on Google Groups -
you'll see.
sherm--
--
Web Hosting by West Virginians, for West Virginians: http://wv-www.net
Cocoa programming in Perl: http://camelbones.sourceforge.net
From: J�rgen Exner
Subject: Re: is laziness a programer's virtue?
Date:
Message-ID: <tRzUh.669$0S1.467@trnddc01>
Ken Tilton wrote:
> J�rgen Exner wrote:
>> Ken Tilton wrote:
>>
>>> Xah Lee wrote:
>>
>>
>> PLEEEEEASE DO NOT FEED THE TROLL
>
> I understand that you mean well, but the fact is that the only NG
> pollution arising from Xah's posts begins with some people abusing Xah
> for perceived trolling and others who feel differenty stepping in to
> support his right to post. ie, If you /really/ do not want to see a
> long thread, well, don't feed it by saying don't feed it. That works
> for real trolls when folks miss that they are trolling and you can
> draw their attention to the trollishness, but not when someone is
> making a heartfelt post, no matter what you think of it.
You must be new to CLPM. I suggest you read his way off-topic,
unsubstantiated, and just plain wrong posting in the archives of DejaNews.
jue
J�rgen Exner wrote:
> Ken Tilton wrote:
>
>>J�rgen Exner wrote:
>>
>>>Ken Tilton wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Xah Lee wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>PLEEEEEASE DO NOT FEED THE TROLL
>>
>>I understand that you mean well, but the fact is that the only NG
>>pollution arising from Xah's posts begins with some people abusing Xah
>>for perceived trolling and others who feel differenty stepping in to
>>support his right to post. ie, If you /really/ do not want to see a
>>long thread, well, don't feed it by saying don't feed it. That works
>>for real trolls when folks miss that they are trolling and you can
>>draw their attention to the trollishness, but not when someone is
>>making a heartfelt post, no matter what you think of it.
>
>
> You must be new to CLPM. I suggest you read his way off-topic,
> unsubstantiated, and just plain wrong posting in the archives of DejaNews.
I enjoy Xah's writings on comp.lang.lisp.
kzo
--
http://www.theoryyalgebra.com/
"Algebra is the metaphysics of arithmetic." - John Ray
"As long as algebra is taught in school,
there will be prayer in school." - Cokie Roberts
"Stand firm in your refusal to remain conscious during algebra."
- Fran Lebowitz
"I'm an algebra liar. I figure two good lies make a positive."
- Tim Allen
Ken Tilton <···@theoryyalgebra.com> writes:
> I enjoy Xah's writings on comp.lang.lisp.
Then you can keep him.
Followups set.
sherm--
--
Web Hosting by West Virginians, for West Virginians: http://wv-www.net
Cocoa programming in Perl: http://camelbones.sourceforge.net
>>>>> "JE" == J�rgen Exner <········@hotmail.com> writes:
JE> You must be new to CLPM. I suggest you read his way off-topic,
JE> unsubstantiated, and just plain wrong posting in the archives
JE> of DejaNews.
Ken Tilton fills the same role in comp.lang.lisp that Xah Lee attempts
to fill in other fora; the principal difference is that Mr Tilton
appears to be able to write coherently in English and actually
understands the subjects he trolls about well enough to throw in valid
points among the trolling.
As comp.lang.perl.misc has enough resident trolls without importing
more from elsewhere, followups have been set.
Charlton
--
Charlton Wilbur
·······@chromatico.net
Charlton Wilbur wrote:
>>>>>>"JE" == J�rgen Exner <········@hotmail.com> writes:
>
>
> JE> You must be new to CLPM. I suggest you read his way off-topic,
> JE> unsubstantiated, and just plain wrong posting in the archives
> JE> of DejaNews.
>
> Ken Tilton fills the same role in comp.lang.lisp that Xah Lee attempts
> to fill in other fora; the principal difference is that Mr Tilton
> appears to be able to write coherently in English and actually
> understands the subjects he trolls about well enough to throw in valid
> points among the trolling.
Looks like my signal-noise ratio has gotten a little too high. :(
kenny
--
http://www.theoryyalgebra.com/
"Algebra is the metaphysics of arithmetic." - John Ray
"As long as algebra is taught in school,
there will be prayer in school." - Cokie Roberts
"Stand firm in your refusal to remain conscious during algebra."
- Fran Lebowitz
"I'm an algebra liar. I figure two good lies make a positive."
- Tim Allen
Ken Tilton <···@theoryyalgebra.com> writes:
> Charlton Wilbur wrote:
[...]
>> Ken Tilton fills the same role in comp.lang.lisp that Xah Lee
>> attempts to fill in other fora; the principal difference is that Mr
>> Tilton appears to be able to write coherently in English and
>> actually understands the subjects he trolls about well enough to
>> throw in valid points among the trolling.
>
> Looks like my signal-noise ratio has gotten a little too high. :(
Unless you meant to write "too low" I think you *really* shouldn't be
writing that algebra tutor. ;-)
--
Wolfram Fenske
A: Yes.
>Q: Are you sure?
>>A: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation.
>>>Q: Why is top posting frowned upon?
Wolfram Fenske wrote:
> Ken Tilton <···@theoryyalgebra.com> writes:
>
>
>>Charlton Wilbur wrote:
>
>
> [...]
>
>
>>>Ken Tilton fills the same role in comp.lang.lisp that Xah Lee
>>>attempts to fill in other fora; the principal difference is that Mr
>>>Tilton appears to be able to write coherently in English and
>>>actually understands the subjects he trolls about well enough to
>>>throw in valid points among the trolling.
>>
>>Looks like my signal-noise ratio has gotten a little too high. :(
>
>
> Unless you meant to write "too low" I think you *really* shouldn't be
> writing that algebra tutor. ;-)
The difference between the software I write and c.l.l is that I take one
of them seriously.
:)
kt
--
http://www.theoryyalgebra.com/
"Algebra is the metaphysics of arithmetic." - John Ray
"As long as algebra is taught in school,
there will be prayer in school." - Cokie Roberts
"Stand firm in your refusal to remain conscious during algebra."
- Fran Lebowitz
"I'm an algebra liar. I figure two good lies make a positive."
- Tim Allen
Some entity, AKA ·······@eecs.wsu.edu,
wrote this mindboggling stuff:
(selectively-snipped-or-not-p)
> Of course, for functional languages, 'lazy' means something rather
> different...
>
lazy means: just get a post-grad to do the grunt-work for free.
Cor
--
The biggest problem LISP has is that it does not appeal to dumb people
If this failed to satisfy you try reading the Hyper-Spec or woman frig
(defvar MyComputer '((OS . "GNU/Emacs") (IPL . "GNU/Linux")))
Read the mailpolicy before mailing http://www.clsnet.nl/mail.html
Xah Lee wrote:
> Laziness, Perl, and Larry Wall
>
> Xah Lee, 20021124
>
> In the unix community there's quite a large confusion and wishful
> thinking about the word laziness. In this post, i'd like to make some
> clarifications.
Years ago I used to work with someone who used to say 'I'm a lazy person
- I like to do things the easy way!'. I guess this is what Larry Wall means.
Jim Ford
Xah Lee wrote:
> Laziness, Perl, and Larry Wall
>
> Xah Lee, 20021124
>
> In the unix community there's quite a large confusion and wishful
> thinking about the word laziness. In this post, i'd like to make some
> clarifications.
>
> American Heritage Dictionary third edition defines laziness as:
> “Resistant to work or exertion; disposed to idleness.”
>
> When the sorcerer Larry Wall said “The three chief virtues of a
> programmer are: Laziness, Impatience and Hubris”, he used the word
> “laziness” to loosely imply “natural disposition that results in being
> economic”. As you can see now, “Resistant to work or exertion” is
> clearly not positive and not a virtue, but “natural disposition that
> results in economy” is a good thing if true.
>
> When Larry Wall said one of programer's virtue is laziness, he wants
> the unix morons to conjure up in their brains the following
> proposition as true: “Resistant to work or exertion is a natural human
> disposition and such disposition actually results behaviors being
> economic”. This statement may be true, which means that human laziness
> may be intuitively understood from evolution. However, this statement
> is a proposition on all human beings, and is not some “virtue” that
> can be applied to a group of people such as programers.
>
> Demagogue Larry Wall is smart in creating a confusion combined with
> wishful thinking. By making subtle statements like this, he semi-
> intentionally confuses average programers to think that it is OK to be
> not thorough, it is OK to be sloppy, it is OK to disparage computer
> science. (like the incompetent unixers and perlers are)
>
> Can you see the evil and its harm in not understanding things clearly?
> This laziness quote by Wall is a tremendous damage to the computing
> industry. It is a source among others that spurs much bad fashion
> trends and fuckups in the industry. It is more damaging than any
> single hack or virus. It is social brain-washing at work, like the
> diamond company De Beers' tremendously successful sales slogan: “A
> Diamond is Forever” or Apple's grammatically fantastic “Think
> Different”.
>
> The most fundamental explanation of why Larry Wall's sophistry are
> damaging to society is simply this: What he said is not true and they
> are widely spread and conceived as worthwhile. This is a form of mis-
> information. This is a manifestation of Love without Knowledge as i
> expounded before, with subtle but disastrous consequences (already).
>
> [DISCLAIMER: all mentions of real persons are opinion only.]
>
> ----
> This post is archived at:
> http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/perl_laziness.html
>
> Xah
> ···@xahlee.org
> ∑ http://xahlee.org/
>
Laziness is re-posting something dated 2002.
On Sun, 15 Apr 2007 18:25:19 +0200, Xah Lee <···@xahlee.org> wrote:
> Laziness, Perl, and Larry Wall
>
> Xah Lee, 20021124
>
> In the unix community there's quite a large confusion and wishful
> thinking about the word laziness. In this post, i'd like to make some
> clarifications.
>
> American Heritage Dictionary third edition defines laziness as:
> “Resistant to work or exertion; disposed to idleness.”
>
In this context I think you can safely take it to mean:
Don't work hard, work smart.
Avoid repetitious work. If somthing seems to elaborate find a more
efficient way.
In a course I took on verifiable programming I found working with Hoare
logic
extremely tedious. So I started using rewriting loops as recursive
procedures and
using induction instead. It took about a quarter of the time as the
invariant of a loop
fell out rather naturally this way. I failed the course, but when I took
the course
over again a year later I noticed that the book had been rewritten and now
half the book
was dedicated to Generator Induction. (Seems the professor noticed I
failed in a interesting
way and figured out it was not so stupid after all.) Naturally I had no
problems the second time ;)
This is just one example but it should convey the idea.
--
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John Thingstad wrote:
> On Sun, 15 Apr 2007 18:25:19 +0200, Xah Lee <···@xahlee.org> wrote:
>
>> Laziness, Perl, and Larry Wall
>>
>> Xah Lee, 20021124
>>
>> In the unix community there's quite a large confusion and wishful
>> thinking about the word laziness. In this post, i'd like to make some
>> clarifications.
>>
>> American Heritage Dictionary third edition defines laziness as:
>> “Resistant to work or exertion; disposed to idleness.”
>>
>
> In this context I think you can safely take it to mean:
> Don't work hard, work smart.
This and several other responses miss that Xah understands that
distinction, witness this excerpt, and especially the very last clause:
> When the sorcerer Larry Wall said “The three chief virtues of a
> programmer are: Laziness, Impatience and Hubris”, he used the word
> “laziness” to loosely imply “natural disposition that results in being
> economic”. As you can see now, “Resistant to work or exertion” is
> clearly not positive and not a virtue, but “natural disposition that
> results in economy” is a good thing if true.
I will leave it to you to re-read the rest of what Xah wrote to find out
about what he was in fact complaining.
hth,kt
--
http://www.theoryyalgebra.com/
"Algebra is the metaphysics of arithmetic." - John Ray
"As long as algebra is taught in school,
there will be prayer in school." - Cokie Roberts
"Stand firm in your refusal to remain conscious during algebra."
- Fran Lebowitz
"I'm an algebra liar. I figure two good lies make a positive."
- Tim Allen
Ken Tilton wrote:
> This and several other responses miss that Xah understands that
> distinction, witness this excerpt, and especially the very last clause:
>
>> When the sorcerer Larry Wall said “The three chief virtues of a
>> programmer are: Laziness, Impatience and Hubris”, he used the word
>> “laziness” to loosely imply “natural disposition that results in being
>> economic”. As you can see now, “Resistant to work or exertion” is
>> clearly not positive and not a virtue,
Actually, I disagree with this assertion. The gung-ho kind of person
who revels in brute effort often won't even think of good programming
ideas because he|she is so intent on solving the problem through sheer
force, and also derives a sense of pride from that.
In programming, on the other hand, laziness can be an excellent
motivator in coming up with ideas. That's one thing that's so great
about Lisp. With macros and functional programming, you don't have to
type or paste in lots of similar code like you do in most other
languages. It's laziness that inspires the programmer to write more and
more abstract code. The only thing that Larry is *not* referring to is
intellectual laziness.
> I will leave it to you to re-read the rest of what Xah wrote to find out
> about what he was in fact complaining.
Xah Lee wrote:
> When Larry Wall said one of programer's virtue is laziness, he wants
> the unix morons to conjure up in their brains the following
> proposition as true: “Resistant to work or exertion is a natural human
> disposition and such disposition actually results behaviors being
> economic”. This statement may be true, which means that human laziness
> may be intuitively understood from evolution. However, this statement
> is a proposition on all human beings, and is not some “virtue” that
> can be applied to a group of people such as programers.
Laziness (physical, not intellectual) is exceedingly useful in
programming.
I also disagree with the idea that Larry is any more dangerous than
Guido, Matz, or Gosling. They're all part of a reaction against
the difficulties of C++ that started somewhere around 1990 or so.
I don't seen any merit in singling out Larry and Perl for special
treatment.
--
Dan
www.prairienet.org/~dsb/
Dan Bensen <··········@cyberspace.net> writes:
> Laziness (physical, not intellectual) is exceedingly useful in
> programming.
>
> I also disagree with the idea that Larry is any more dangerous than
> Guido, Matz, or Gosling. They're all part of a reaction against
> the difficulties of C++ that started somewhere around 1990 or so.
> I don't seen any merit in singling out Larry and Perl for special
> treatment.
Well at least the notion of the lazy programmer is much older than
1990. In 1981 already my programming teachers were telling us that a
good programmer was an intelligent lazy programmer.
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__
Pascal Bourguignon <···@informatimago.com> writes:
> Dan Bensen <··········@cyberspace.net> writes:
>> Laziness (physical, not intellectual) is exceedingly useful in
>> programming.
>>
>> I also disagree with the idea that Larry is any more dangerous than
>> Guido, Matz, or Gosling. They're all part of a reaction against
>> the difficulties of C++ that started somewhere around 1990 or so.
>> I don't seen any merit in singling out Larry and Perl for special
>> treatment.
>
> Well at least the notion of the lazy programmer is much older than
> 1990. In 1981 already my programming teachers were telling us that a
> good programmer was an intelligent lazy programmer.
Actually, I think the phrase is a specific instance of the generic
phrase: "A good N is a lazy N." which has been around for a lot
longer; I remember in my high-school years in the late 60s my
chemistry teacher saying "A good chemist is a lazy chemist." and
noting to myself at the time that the phrase seemed a bit cliche.
--
Duane Rettig ·····@franz.com Franz Inc. http://www.franz.com/
555 12th St., Suite 1450 http://www.555citycenter.com/
Oakland, Ca. 94607 Phone: (510) 452-2000; Fax: (510) 452-0182
Duane Rettig wrote:
> Pascal Bourguignon <···@informatimago.com> writes:
>
>
>>Dan Bensen <··········@cyberspace.net> writes:
>>
>>>Laziness (physical, not intellectual) is exceedingly useful in
>>>programming.
>>>
>>>I also disagree with the idea that Larry is any more dangerous than
>>>Guido, Matz, or Gosling. They're all part of a reaction against
>>>the difficulties of C++ that started somewhere around 1990 or so.
>>>I don't seen any merit in singling out Larry and Perl for special
>>>treatment.
>>
>>Well at least the notion of the lazy programmer is much older than
>>1990. In 1981 already my programming teachers were telling us that a
>>good programmer was an intelligent lazy programmer.
>
>
> Actually, I think the phrase is a specific instance of the generic
> phrase: "A good N is a lazy N." which has been around for a lot
> longer; I remember in my high-school years in the late 60s my
> chemistry teacher saying "A good chemist is a lazy chemist." and
> noting to myself at the time that the phrase seemed a bit cliche.
>
So I turn to Google to determined exactly how cliched and what other
expansions of your template could be found, and after sorting thru the
"No-good lazy justices" hits come upon <sigh> Wall's definition:
"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. Hence, the first great
virtue of a programmer. "
That actually seems like an awful definition, possibly because Perl does
not really support the productivity leaps possible with other languages?
It certainly seems neutral on the /quality/ of the code.
kt
--
http://www.theoryyalgebra.com/
"Algebra is the metaphysics of arithmetic." - John Ray
"As long as algebra is taught in school,
there will be prayer in school." - Cokie Roberts
"Stand firm in your refusal to remain conscious during algebra."
- Fran Lebowitz
"I'm an algebra liar. I figure two good lies make a positive."
- Tim Allen
On Sun, 15 Apr 2007 22:53:28 -0500, Dan Bensen
<··········@cyberspace.net> wrote:
[...]
> Ken Tilton wrote:
[...]
>>> When the sorcerer Larry Wall said ?The three chief virtues of a
>>> programmer are: Laziness, Impatience and Hubris?, he used the word
>>> ?laziness? to loosely imply ?natural disposition that results in being
>>> economic?. As you can see now, ?Resistant to work or exertion? is
>>> clearly not positive and not a virtue,
>
> Actually, I disagree with this assertion. The gung-ho kind of person
> who revels in brute effort often won't even think of good programming
> ideas because he|she is so intent on solving the problem through sheer
> force, and also derives a sense of pride from that.
The "Worse is better" school of thought argues that this is a
legitimate way to solve problems. Indeed there is the Ken Thompson
quote "When in doubt, use brute force".
[...]
> It's laziness that inspires the programmer to write more and
> more abstract code. The only thing that Larry is *not* referring to is
> intellectual laziness.
Exactly.
David Formosa (aka ? the Platypus) wrote:
> On Sun, 15 Apr 2007 22:53:28 -0500, Dan Bensen
> <··········@cyberspace.net> wrote:
> [...]
>
>>Ken Tilton wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>>>>When the sorcerer Larry Wall said ?The three chief virtues of a
>>>>programmer are: Laziness, Impatience and Hubris?, he used the word
>>>>?laziness? to loosely imply ?natural disposition that results in being
>>>>economic?. As you can see now, ?Resistant to work or exertion? is
>>>>clearly not positive and not a virtue,
>>
>>Actually, I disagree with this assertion. The gung-ho kind of person
>>who revels in brute effort often won't even think of good programming
>>ideas because he|she is so intent on solving the problem through sheer
>>force, and also derives a sense of pride from that.
>
>
> The "Worse is better" school of thought argues that this is a
> legitimate way to solve problems.
Wow, where do you get that?!
> The concept known as "worse is better" holds that in software making
> (and perhaps in other arenas as well) it is better to start with a
> minimal creation and grow it as needed.
> http://www.dreamsongs.com/WorseIsBetter.html
That's about "when to go live", not "how to program".
kt
--
http://www.theoryyalgebra.com/
"Algebra is the metaphysics of arithmetic." - John Ray
"As long as algebra is taught in school,
there will be prayer in school." - Cokie Roberts
"Stand firm in your refusal to remain conscious during algebra."
- Fran Lebowitz
"I'm an algebra liar. I figure two good lies make a positive."
- Tim Allen
Some entity, AKA Takehiko Abe <····@gol.com>,
wrote this mindboggling stuff:
(selectively-snipped-or-not-p)
> > When Larry Wall said one of programer's virtue is laziness,
>
> I am too lazy to learn Perl.
yeps, just hire the idiots to do it and cash in.
Cor
--
The biggest problem LISP has is that it does not appeal to dumb people
If this failed to satisfy you try reading the Hyper-Spec or woman frig
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Read the mailpolicy before mailing http://www.clsnet.nl/mail.html
"Takehiko Abe" <····@gol.com> wrote in message
·······························@nnrp.gol.com...
>> When Larry Wall said one of programer's virtue is laziness,
>
> I am too lazy to learn Perl.
>
Two new languages I learnt recently were Perl and Lisp.
With Perl it was a case of "this is more or less the same thing as C but
with a few irritating differences. I suppose since it is interpreted rather
than compiled I do need to know it so I knock up some trivial scripts. And
yes, a regular expression matching function is nice but couldn't you just
have done the silly thing in C. Your syntax is also unreadable."
With Lisp. "Wow. This is a whole new way of programming. Yes, it is
virtually impossible to chop off the tail of a list. But once you've worked
it out you see that everything can be done with recursion. Surely this
expresses some deep and meaningful truth about the nature of algorithms, of
reasoning, of meaning itself."
--
Free games and programming goodies.
http://www.personal.leeds.ac.uk/~bgy1mm