RE(5) Diversity, Newbies, Humility

You know, I have to agree with mdillon on this one. Perl Monks is the single friendliest tech site I have ever had the pleasure of participating in. You wouldn't catch me on #perl even if my job depended on it, because it filters out the thin-skinned sorts like me. It's fine to say "you should get a thicker skin" which I have been told, but screw that, I like myself the way I am.

Look, some newbie comes on and asks how to get rid of whitespace, they don't have any f***ing clue that this question has been asked a thousand times. If they did, they'd know where to find the answer. Is it so much to ask to just point 'em towards a working link with a friendly word? I don't mean to get religious, but you don't see Franciscans saying RTFB. There's a genuine community spirit here, and it has as much to do with humility as it does with knowledge.

sorry KM didn't mean to offend

e-mail neshura

Comment on RE(5) Diversity, Newbies, Humility

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RE: RE(5) Diversity, Newbies, Humility by KM (Priest) on Jun 01, 2000 at 00:56 UTC
Well, #perl isn't a help desk, which is most peoples misconception. It is a community of people who like Perl. In fact, if you simply lurk there you could learn a ton from the various conversations that happen (when they actually pertain to Perl). It isn't a matter of a questions being asked 1000 times, but the fact that many questions are answered in the documentation that comes with Perl. You speak as though I have answered a bunch of (or any) questions with RTFM, instead of nicely pointing people to the docs (which I will not link to) or showing them a solution. So, stop appearing to be asking me to stop doing something I am not. Enough people with clue don't care for this site already and you shouldn't preech to nice, helpful, clueful folks. Cheers, KM	[reply]
RE: RE: RE(5) Diversity, Newbies, Humility by neshura (Chaplain) on Jun 01, 2000 at 01:13 UTC
I think your answers are actually excellent, I've already told you that before. Look, it's just a different approach -- it may seem like my post was a bit self-righteous ("just a bit?") but not every larval perl user is clone of all the others -- proto-geeks with near-infinite spare hours to pore through volumes of electronic documentation. Some people are just coming over to Perl from another language, they need to know it NOW because their livelihood might depend on them acquiring a new skill as quickly as possible. (that's just one possible scenario) Anyway, I'm not trying to start an argument, and I think you are cool and you haven't been mean to anyone that I am aware of, but I don't think a dialogue on site philosophy is terribly out of bounds. No skin off my back if the clueful give perl monks (the site OR the people) a cold shoulder, for whatever reason. Okay, I might be a little hurt, just a bit :-) I understand if you get annoyed that people treat #perl like a help desk. I'm not surprised that they do. It's not like perl has a help desk. (Sure, there's lots of self-help available). Perl Monks fills a niche, I think it's cool. So I wish you peace, love, and free beer :-) e-mail neshura	[reply]