Computing Atlas

How Computing Was Built
Sign In
Text size
100%
Theme
Pioneer

Larry Wall

Also Known As TimToady · Larry Arnold Wall
Software And Its Engineering

Larry Wall is an American computer programmer, linguist and author who created the Perl programming language while employed as a programmer at Unisys, releasing version 1.0 on December 18, 1987, as a general-purpose Unix scripting language meant to make report processing easier. He also created the patch tool and the rn Usenet client, and won the International Obfuscated C Code Contest twice. In 1998 he received the first Free Software Foundation Award for the Advancement of Free Software. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Facts
Birth Year
1954 1
Birth Date
1954-09-27 1
Nationality
American 1
Award
STUG Award 2
Award
FSF Award for the Advancement of Free Software 2
Connections

Invented

Source Wikidata: Perl
Additional Source Wikipedia: Larry WallCareer section

Invented By

Source Wikidata: Raku
In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Larry Wall
Wikimedia Foundation
  • Career section
    Wall is the author of the rn Usenet client and the widely used patch program.
  • Introduction
    Larry Arnold Wall (born September 27, 1954) is an American computer programmer, linguist, and author known for creating the Perl programming language and the patch tool.
View the Source
2. Wikidata: Larry Wall
Wikidata Q92597, class allow-list match (w-wdresolver-0926)View the Source
Wikidata: Raku
Invented By: Raku, Wikidata Q2052676 P178 (developer) claim -> Q92597 (Larry Wall); computing atlas pioneer entity 266843, checked 2026-09-28View the Source
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.