-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 11/25/06 17:07, Russ Allbery wrote: > Ron Johnson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> On 11/25/06 13:54, Russ Allbery wrote: > >>> It's a back-formation, as is "Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister" >>> (later in the man page). The language is actually named after "Pearl" >>> but since there was already a language named that, Larry Wall dropped >>> the "a". Since then, a few acronyms were made up to fit the letters. > >> Does an official-looking top-of-the-man-page backronym that does not >> indicate that it is a backronym *become* canonical, simply by reason >> that it's at the top of the official man page? > > Well, the Perl developers don't seem to think so given the arguments on > the Perl mailing lists we've had as much as some of the pointless
That's really interesting/confusing. According to http://history.perl.org/PerlTimeline.html the v1.000 man page also gives the acronym NAME perl | Practical Extraction and Report Language So, anyone who does The Right Thing and goes to Canon can only presume that this is what perl means. > arguments we have in Debian, but it doesn't really *matter*. :) > - -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA Is "common sense" really valid? For example, it is "common sense" to white-power racists that whites are superior to blacks, and that those with brown skins are mud people. However, that "common sense" is obviously wrong. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFFaNiRS9HxQb37XmcRAhAtAKC5A8OmnTXjlHm41eydiAx6jMOqGACg0E62 8vQXrSMc0Fo5YBzJ3REQ8e8= =2fwf -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
