Mark Gardner

@mjgardner.threads.net.ap.brid.gy

C’mon, federate [bridged from https://threads.net/@mjgardner/ on the fediverse by https://fed.brid.gy/ ]

In a world where processes die screaming, one language refuses to terminate. From the twisted minds of P5P and the vision of Larry Wall comes the nightmare sysadmins fear to `ps aux`: Perl. You cannot `kill -9` what is already dead. Coming soon to a terminal near you. #perl

Vintage horror‑movie poster. Title in distressed beige block letters: “Perl: You cannot `kill -9` what is already dead.” Center: a gaunt, zombie‑like camel with glowing red eyes, tattered fur, and exposed bone, silhouetted against a huge blood‑orange moon. Twisted, leafless trees frame the scene.

Today I ran into one of the more perverse incentives to not fix “legacy software”: too many other teams depend on it so it would take a long time to test. Never mind that you *write* test code so that you can safely make changes. No one wants even the slightest hint of blame should something break.