From: Rodent of Unusual Size (Ken.Coar@Golux.Com)
Date: Thu Sep 21 2000 - 13:00:57 PDT
'Nuff said.
-- #ken P-)}Ken Coar <http://Golux.Com/coar/> Apache Software Foundation <http://www.apache.org/> "Apache Server for Dummies" <http://Apache-Server.Com/> "Apache Server Unleashed" <http://ApacheUnleashed.Com/>
attached mail follows:
Al Gore's Mother Invented Perl
San Jose, CA (API) - In an attempt to win over the dot-com, e-business, and iCompany programming crowd, Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore made a surprising announcement here on Friday at a small hacker gathering in the late afternoon.
Gore claims that many years ago his mother, Pauline, invented Perl.
"I remember sitting next to her while she rocked in her old rocking chair out on the porch of our little Washington, D.C., apartment. She would mumble to herself things like 'Knit 1.0, Perl 2.0'," recalled Gore during his speech. "She also made some kind of funny marks in her knitting notebook; instructions of some kind, I suppose."
"I didn't think much of it until many years later, after I invented the Internet," said Gore in his best impression of a Tennessee drawl. "I knew then that we'd need a whole new approach to programming my new Internet."
Gore related that he remembered meeting Larry Wall during his college years. "Larry and I would get together occasionally for some math homework, and he would show me how to manipulate budget figures so that a tax increase could be shown as a cut. Because of that friendship and mentoring, I knew that Larry would be just the guy to develop a language for my new Internet.
"I showed Larry my mom's old notebook, and he saw immediately that my mom's curious notations would be exactly the basis he needed to extend the language for my Internet. Out of respect for my mom's pioneering achievement, he continued to call the new language 'Perl'."
Gore continued, "Larry got together with a friend of his, Randy Switz, or Schwertz, or something like that. The two of them relentlessly worked over that language notation until it was satisfactory for a first release. Over the next several years, they added virtually all keyboard keystroke combinations to the language. So, pretty much whatever you can type will be a program that will work on my Internet."
As an example of how Perl has helped the Internet grow, Gore noted, "Even monkeys have been trained to develop web site data processing routines. You might visit heyheywearethemonkeys.com for their work. I've even decided to invest in iMonkey, a new portal site for our world's endangered species."
Gore concluded his speech with "Thanks for helping make my Internet what it is today. I couldn't have done it without help from all of you. Please encourage me with your votes in November."
Several people noticed that Gore left the site of his speech in a Ford Explorer, dubbed "Internet too", with at least one under-inflated tire.
Posted on Tue 12 Sep 07:04:10 2000 PDT Written by Michael L. Cook <MLCook@collins.rockwell.com>
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