http://qs321.pair.com?node_id=351898


in reply to How long have you been using Perl?

I think I first heard about it in the late 80's, early 90's when I read about some guy having an encryption/decryption algorithim tattooed on his body, written in Perl. Since U.S. law prohibits the exportation of 'restricted munitions' (this code was an example), then theoretically this guy couldn't leave the country. I'd love to find that article again and see how faulty my memory is.

My first steps were getting frustrated with writing "grind 'em up and spit 'em out" C programs, and moving to awk (for DOS, of course) for that work. That led fairly smoothly on to Perl scripts doing the same thing (taking memory model information and generating SQL), and from there it was a short leap into CGI programming during the Internet boom. Finally, hosting some web sites with pair Networks I read about Perl Monks in an interview with Damian Conway and immediately signed up here.

I continue to learn.

Alex / talexb / Toronto

Life is short: get busy!

Updated: Added two punctuation marks.

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Re: Re: How long have you been using Perl?
by t'mo (Pilgrim) on May 26, 2004 at 21:10 UTC

      Yeah, that's the story .. the photo I remember showed more of the guy (bald head, no shirt?) and less of the tatoo, but that is definitely the story. Glad to hear my memory is going on me. Very cool.

      Alex / talexb / Toronto

      Life is short: get busy!