State of the Onion 2003
Larry Wall's annual report on Perl
by Larry WallJuly 16, 2003
This is the 7th annual State of the Perl Onion speech, wherein I tell you how Perl is doing. Perl is doing fine, thank you. Now that that's out of the way, I'd like to spend the rest of the time telling jokes.
In fact, the conference organizers have noticed that I spend most of the time telling jokes. So each year they give me a little less time, so I have to chop out more of the serious subject matter so as to leave time for the jokes.
Extrapolating several years into the future, they'll eventually chop my time down to ten seconds. I'll have just enough time to say: "I'm really, really excited about what is happening with Perl this year. And I'd like to announce that, after lengthy negotiations, Guido and I have finally decided... <gong> ["Time's up. Next speaker please"]
Well, you didn't really want to know that anyway...
Since this is a State of the Union speech, or State of the Onion, in the particular case of Perl, I'm supposed to tell you what Perl's current state is. But I already told you that the current state of Perl is just fine. Or at least as fine as it ever was. Maybe a little better.
But what you really want to know about is the future state of Perl. That's nice. I don't know much about the future of Perl. Nobody does. That's part of the design of Perl 6. Since we're designing it to be a mutable language, it will probably mutate. If I did know the future of Perl, and if I told you, you'd probably run away screaming.
As I was meditating on this subject, thinking about how I don't know the future of Perl, and how you probably don't want to know it anyway, I was reminded of a saying that I first saw posted in the 1960's. You may feel like this on some days.
We the unwilling,
led by the unknowing,
are doing the impossible
for the ungrateful.
We have done so much for so long with so little
We are now qualified to do anything with nothing
I think of it as the Blue-Collar Worker's Creed.
This has been attributed to various people, none of whom are Ben Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, or Mark Twain. My favorite attribution is to Mother Teresa. She may well have quoted it, but I don't think she coined it, because I don't think Mother Teresa thought of herself as "unwilling". After all, Mother Teresa got a Nobel prize for being one of the most willing people on the face of the earth.
It's also been attributed to the Marines in Vietnam, and it certainly fits a little better. But since I grew up in a Navy town, I'd like to think it was invented by a civilian shipyard worker working for the Navy. In any event, I first saw it posted in a work area at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard back in the 1960's. Now, you may well wondering what I was doing in a Naval Shipyard in the 1960's. That's a secret.
Anyway, you may also be wondering why I brought it up at all. Well, last year I used the table of contents from an issue of Scientific American as my outline. This year I'd like to use this as my outline.
I'd like to, but I won't.
But if I did, here's what I'd say.
From the postmodern point of view, this is a text that needs to be deconstructed. It was obviously written by someone in a position of power pretending not to be. And by making light of the plight of blue collar workers, and allowing the oppressed workers to post this copy-machine meme in the workplace, this white-collar wolf in blue-collar sheep's clothing has managed to persuade the oppressed workers that being powerless is something to be proud of.
Now, some of you young folks are too steeped in postmodernism to know anything about postmodernism, so let's review. Postmodernism in its most vicious form started out with the notion that there exist various cultural constructs, or texts, or memes, that allow some human beings to oppress other human beings. Of course, in Soviet Russia it's the other way around. Which is why they managed to deconstruct themselves, I guess.
Anyway, deconstructionism is all about throwing out the bad cultural memes, where "bad" is defined as anything an oppressed person doesn't like. Which is fine as far as it goes, but the spanner in the works is that you can only be an oppressed person if the deconstructionists say you are. Dead white males need not apply. Fortunately, I'm not dead yet. Though I'm trying. As some of you know, several weeks ago I was in the hospital with a bleeding ulcer. I guess I'm a little like Soviet Russia. I oppress myself, so I deconstruct myself.
Oh, by the way, I got better. In case you hadn't noticed.
Though I'm not allowed to drink anything brown anymore. Sigh. That's why this speech is so boring — I wrote it under the non-influence.
But back to postmodernism. Postmodern critics have invented a notation for using a word and denying its customary meaning at the same time, since most customary meanings are oppressive to someone or other, and if not, they ought to be. Or something like that.
Anyway, I'm going to borrow that notation for my own oppressive purposes, and strike out a few of these words that don't mean exactly what I want them to mean. I hope that doesn't make me a postmodern critic. Or maybe it does. As Humpty Dumpty said, the question is who's to be master, that's all.
So let's start by striking out "unwilling", because there are quite a few willing people around here. Or at least willful.
And let's strike out "unknowing" too, because you wouldn't be sitting here listening to us leaders here tonight if you thought we didn't know anything. On the other hand, maybe you just came for the jokes...
Now let's strike out the "impossible". Actually, I hesitate to strike that one out, because what we're trying to do with Perl is to be all things to all people, and in the long run that is completely impossible, technically, socially, and theologically speaking.
But that doesn't stop us from trying. And who knows, maybe more of it is possible than we imagine.
We definitely have to strike out ungrateful, because we know many people are grateful. Nevertheless, a number of people find it impossible to be grateful, and we should be working to please them as well. Love your enemies, and all that. Another impossible task. Or... perhaps the same one.
