[Chicago-talk] Expanded TMTOWTDI quote... Beuller? Anyone?

Clyde Forrester ccf3 at mindspring.com
Sun May 17 10:58:19 PDT 2009


Clyde Forrester wrote:
> I thought I read or heard an expanded version of TMTOWTDI somewhere.
>
> Something like: "There's more than one way to do it, so try to do it 
> the [clearest|cleanest|most readable|most maintainable] way."
>
> As opposed to, say: "There's more than one way to do it, so try to 
> make it look like a cat walked across your keyboard. No, really! It 
> pisses Guido off to no end."
>
> But I'm not finding anything. Has anyone seen a quote like that?
>
> Clyde
The response has been:

     [crickets]

So, that's it? The Pythonistas win, hands down, right?
Perl must rightfully go the way of Basic?

Well, I found the quote:

    Perl is designed to give you several ways to do anything, so
    consider picking the most readable one.
            --Larry Wall in the perl man page


This is important to me.
I use Perl because it's useful and it works.
And I write readable Perl, because it's maintainable that way.
And I occasionally have to tell off some people who think that
Perl promotes a culture of gratuitous illegibility,
or is designed for obfuscation.

Clyde


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