I've actually had it in my mind to do the Alpaca book since just before the Llama book came out. I chose the name "Alpaca" because it was the only other animal I knew about in the Camel/Llama family, and I had expected to remain only an internal code name throughout the project, with the real animal chosen (as always) by Edie.
However, on November 1st, 1993, the release date of the first edition of the Llama, I got distracted by a
legal case, and had to shelve any immediate plans for book writing, as I urgently needed cash to feed the lawyers.
That's part of the reason I'm happy that I've finally been able to come full circle, and finish what was already started in 1993.
During the authoring of this book, I used the Alpaca name for our internal correspondance, expecting full well that a different animal would be selected. However, the O'Reilly editor Linda Mui asked for and got a really nice bushy Alpaca for the cover. And there it is!
-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker
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