[cestith]

I don't have it in writing or video, but in 2008 at ACM Reflections/Projections at University of Illinois I was involved in a long conversation with Larry Wall and Al Aho. It was largely about the history and lineage of programming languages.

Al said that if Perl had existed first there wouldn't have been an awk. I pointed out that parts of Perl are inspired by awk and might have otherwise been inspired by SNOBOL or ICON, at which point everyone present seemed to agree means we're thankful for awk. I take it as high praise when Al Aho defers to your tool.

I was just reminiscing with Larry about that discussion last week at The Perl Conference in Arlington. He said he had fond memories of that conversation and that he and Al went for lunch the next day after that conversation, too. I'd have loved to be there for that.