The point of my exercise on comp.lang.perl.misc, as Andrew describes on use.perl.org, was to show that a newbie could ask a basic question about Perl ("How do I delete a file?") in a way that would generate helpful answers and not flames ("I found a function called delete in the documentation, but it doesn't seem to do what I want.").

As you can see, the Anonymous Monk here was not careful about how the question was asked. :) But note, even though the question got voted way down, it's a testament to the Monastery that the Anonymous Monk nonetheless received several helpful answers and no flames.

I'd completely forgotten about my pseudo-newbie posting to clpm until Andrew reminded me of it a few days ago. I think it occurred four or five years ago. Unfortunately, the archives at http://www.deja.com seem to go back only to spring of 1997.