Are you allowed to describe something you wrote yourself as seminal?

If enough other people (or the *right* other people) describe it that way first, and if you're bringing it up in a situation where it is clearly relevant (or someone else brought it up first), then yes. Not that it doesn't represent a certain amount of hubris, of course...

(And no, I don't happen to know in this particular instance who else may or may not have so described the item in question first. I was just answering your question in the general manner in which it was stated.)

Actually, I probably misused the word, because I had no idea what it meant until I just looked it up, other than "the thing most people refer to that most clearly defines something".

So, seminal may not apply, but it's still the most clear collection of examples of how Perl parsing is not possible without executing some code, which would have answered your other question had you read it, and if you still haven't, I recommend reading it now.

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker
Be sure to read my standard disclaimer if this is a reply.

For something to be seminal it only has to be first, and with a thorough literature review one can claim seminality for one's own work.

On a related note, not pertaining to the article in question; it is interesting to note how often "seminal" is confused with "good". There is great value in firsts, but they are frequently not good paragons of their form.