I recently joined the PerlMonk community searching simply for answers to a couple of questions. What I found, however, was something much more.

I expected the site to be very much like a newsgroup where I would submit a question, then told to RTFM or be waiting for days for an answer. This was certainly not the case. Instead, I had several users respond with different methods and different ways to think about the problem. All of the answers were well formed and kind as well.

Although I was just concerned with the quick answer initially, I kept checking the site and looking for questions that I found interesting. Then I saw a couple of New Nodes that I knew the answer to and decided to help out and post my answer. From there my involvement exploded and I check the site constantly. It's my online addiction.

I find that this is the most useful online community that I know of; especially in the programming world. Some of my co-workers were surprised to learn that I could get an answer to some difficult questions over lunchtime. Others wished that the C/C++ community had something similar. There is no other site for a programming language that I know of where any questions are welcome, a general Q/A database is being kept, or general "meditations" about the language can be posted. And that's just scratching the surface. There's also this wonderful chatterbox where in real time I can ask a perl question and get my answer quickly. You (or we) all have done a fantastic job creating something that genuinely helps everyone share and learn. I've been impressed with this site and hope to keep being impressed in the future.

So pat yourself on the back for being part of something good.