I thought I might be misreading it which is why I said, "Maybe it's me", but it did seem to have a curt tone. More than a couple posts of merlyn's have struck that chord with me. Don't get me wrong. I probably use one of his books or articles every single day. Even if he was unbelievable belligerent (He's not), I'd still listen to him because he knows a hell of alot more than I and I've learned a hell of a lot too.
Like I said, this thread is not a particulary worthy example, but what I was more addressing is an attitude I've perceived at the Monastery.I really think there is a lot to be learned by doing things the hard way sometimes. I use modules all the time, but when I started, I didn't have the luxury. Hell, I didn't have docs for most stuff. Just wading through ASM,C and x86 docs from the library. Trial and Error is a tough way to learn but I think you learn a lot more from solving a problem than reading it's answer.
I'm not suggesting rebuilding the wheel over and over, If someone asks a question and there is a good module, that's the first place I'll point them, but I've noticed that if someone doesn't want to use CGI.pm for instance, a lot of monks just start scolding.
Now, if someone doesn't want to take their time solving a problem that has already been solved, I can totally respect that, but I don't think there is a need to harp on the person asking. Most people will just give up anyways and come around to the CGI.pm way. And the ones who stick it out? Maybe they'll come up with something even better. (As an aside, I almost always use CGI.pm or subclass it to meet my CGI needs)
Just my 2 cents.
-Lee
"To be civilized is to deny one's nature." | [reply] |
but it did seem to have a curt tone
This was covered in depth in the thread On reading tone accurately.
Update: I know this post looks curt too. But that was not my intention. I read that node last night and found it quite interesting.
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My £0.02:
Personally I learnt a lot more from tilly's post than merlyn's, because I had not thought about using END{}. Obviously this example (of a counter)
could not be used in a 'real' site (no file locking etc) but then again I'm sure it would be better to just parse the Apache logfile than use any sort of counter.
When I'm at work I always think it's better to show people the 'long-hand' way of doing things before using shortcuts, because there will be times when shortcuts/modules are not available. (This is on AXE switches, not Perl, but you get the idea). If you teach someone a procedure and later they write their own script to automate it, then you know that they've really understood it.
Basically if people are only shown how to use the shortcuts, then after a while
there will be no-one left who actually knows how to write the shortcuts in the first place.
JJ
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[d/l] |
The head of this thread is presented as a reusable solution, not as a "here's what I wrote while I was learning, but don't use it for anything".
So, I said "no, don't use this as a reusable solution, use this CPAN module instead".
If that's seems condescending or curt, then so be it. But that's not the intention.
If the original poster had clearly labled it as "don't use this", then I won't post
any CPAN-one-liners in reply. If it's posted as "this is what I have so far, are there
any better ways", I would have offered advice, and probably gotten around to
a CPAN solution as well.
But when I see a posting that takes 20 lines to do what 3 can, and poorly at that,
and presented as a "please reuse this solution", I will speak
up. You can count on that. Many people count on me to do that, in fact.
-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker
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