Re: [FWP] Perl gender?

[trowton@broadcast.com (Tom Rowton)]

<disclaimer>No offense intended to any female perlers.</disclaimer>

I think female.
Maybe it's the flexibilty, malleabilty.
Maybe it's the constant evolution, or the 'moodiness'(forget one small
thing, and you're not getting anywhere, but do things right and she'll do
almost anything for you).
Maybe it's the infinite complexity(we men are pretty simple for the most
part).

On the other hand, I think C++ is definitely a male bastard.

trowt


----- Original Message -----
From: Peter Scott <Peter@PSDT.com>
To: <fwp@technofile.org>
Cc: <larry@wall.org>
Sent: Sunday, August 08, 1999 6:19 PM
Subject: [FWP] Perl gender?


If this isn't fun enough for this list I'm sure I'll hear about it :-)

I found myself at a point in writing a book where I wanted to describe Perl
with a specific gender pronoun ('he' or 'she').  Never mind why; it's a
long story.  But naturally I wondered which one it should be.  So I thought
I would put it to a vote (although any response from Larry Wall will be
weighted greater than all the other votes put together, just so you know
:-).

Do you think of Perl as male or female (and if it hasn't occurred to you
before - as it hadn't to me - then you may deliver a snap
judgement).  Ingenious justifications welcome.  I present some of my own
below (and some of the most incendiary flame bait I've ever posted).

Arguments for male:

Oriented towards power tools.
Chafes at the idea of natural limits.
Violent vocabulary: bind, chop, die, kill, tie, ...

Arguments for female:

Often figures out what you meant even when you said something else.
Favors multiple ways of saying the same thing.
Disposed toward poetry.


--
Peter Scott
Pacific Systems Design Technologies


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