Turn this around. Say you post a question, and see 3 quick replies that say the same thing. Might that not give you more confidence that the answer is correct?

I'm not seeing a problem here that a "first post" button solves.

A point indeed... I am convinced.

However, i doubt i could help but slightly feel embarraced at redundancy... =)

-nuffin
zz zZ Z Z #!perl

--
perl -wpe "s/\b;([mnst])/'$1/g"

So true... within each response one can see a little window into the responders soul:

Angry monk:

site how to (OBE) The Perl Monks FAQ What makes a bad question? Before You Post ... How (Not) To Ask A Question How to RTFM How to ask questions the smart way

All forrest no trees monk:

use strict or die;

Curt monk:

see pacopod

I already asked that monk:

I already asked that here.

Too much time on his hands monk:

Here are several wonderful nodes on the subject by our beloved brother tilly that I have found useful.

No time on his hands monk:

Don't reinvent the wheel, use God::Paco from the CPAN.

Too helpful monk:

As you see in the code below, I've rewritten your regex and incorporated a rather interesting example of the Swartzian Transform. Also, I've made it object-oriented to improve readability.

Module monk:

I've written a module for this that I haven't published to the CPAN yet.

Column monk:

I've already written a column about that.

Benchmark monk:

Your solution is very slow compared to Perl's native paco function:

Benchmark: timing 10000 iterations of paco, wako...
         paco:  4 secs ( 3.97 usr  0.01 sys =  3.98 cpu)
         wako:  6 secs ( 4.97 usr  0.00 sys =  4.97 cpu)
[download]

Einstein monk:

my $contextual = '(?:c(?:bex|e(?:bax|vpxf?)|hff(?:vrf|l)|vff(?:\\ gnxr
+|\\-gnxr|gnxr|r(?:ef|[feq])|vat|l)?)|dhvzf?|ebbg(?:r(?:ef|[eq])|vat|f
+)?|f(?:bq(?:q(?:rq|vat)|f)?|chax|perj(?:rq|vat|f)?|u(?:nt(?:t(?:r(?:e
+f|[qe])|vat)|f)?|vg(?:g(?:r(?:ef|[qe])|vat|l)|r(?:ef|[fqel])|vat|[fr]
+)?))|g(?:heqf?|jngf?|vgf?)|jnax(?:r(?:ef|[eq])|vat|f)?|n(?:ef(?:r(?:\
+\ ubyr|\\-ubyr|ubyr|[fq])|vat|r)|ff(?:\\ ubyrf?|\\-ubyrf?|rq|ubyrf?|v
+at))|o(?:ba(?:r(?:ef|[fe])|vat|r)|h(?:ttre|yy(?:\\ fuvg(?:g(?:r(?:ef|
+[qe])|vat)|f)?|\\-fuvg(?:g(?:r(?:ef|[qe])|vat)|f)?|fuvg(?:g(?:r(?:ef|
+[qe])|vat)|f)?))|n(?:paco|yy(?:r(?:ef|[qe])|vat|f)?)|yb(?:bql|j(?:\\ 
+wbof?|\\-wbof?|wbof?)))|p(?:bpx(?:\\ fhpx(?:ref?|vat)|\\-fhpx(?:ref?|
+vat)|fhpx(?:ref?|vat)|f)?|enc(?:c(?:r(?:ef|[eq])|vat|l)|f)?|h(?:agf?|
+z(?:vat|zvat|f)))|q(?:batf?|vpx(?:\\ urnq|\\-urnq|rq|urnq|vat|yrff|f)
+?)|s(?:hpx(?:rq|vat|f)?|neg(?:r[eq]|vat|[fl])?|rygpu(?:r(?:ef|[efq])|
+vat)?)|u(?:hzc(?:r(?:ef|[eq])|vat|f)?|n(?:eq[\\-\\ ]?ba|ys(?:\\ n[fe]
+|\\-n[fe]|n[fe])frq))|z(?:bgure(?:\\ shpx(?:ref?|vat)|\\-shpx(?:ref?|
+vat)|shpx(?:ref?|vat))|hgu(?:n(?:\\ shpx(?:ref?|vat|[nnn])|\\-shpx(?:
+ref?|vat|[nnn])|shpx(?:ref?|vat|[nnn]))|re(?:\\ shpx(?:ref?|vat)|\\-s
+hpx(?:ref?|vat)|shpx(?:ref?|vat)))|reqr?))';
[download]

(UPDATE: Fixed some thread display issues. Funny how an HTML definition list looks different in a thread than as a stand alone node.)

(UPDATE 2: Doing an XHTML version of a DL seems to fix the formatting on the different views (Thanks to Aristotle for the idea). Let me know if there are still problems. Also, how about golf monk? )

()-()
 \"/
  `

What about Comedian monk?

++ BTW. :-)

-sauoq
"My two cents aren't worth a dime.";

Golf monk:


I've shorten your code to 13 strokes perl -0777pale '$_=@F'

Scoundrel anonymous monk:


merlyn sucks

Honestly, I don't think there is quite such a problem with "first posts" here as on some other sites, although that is probably more related to the nature of the site and the general level of maturity of those participating herein. The "first posts" I see here are generally helpful, unlike those on other sites I have seen. I have seen mention of it before at least once in an article (which I can't recall at the moment) on (I think) XP whoring, though.

If I am thinking of the same article you are, the first response was dated 3 minutes after the article was posted, the next two responses were dated a minute later, and the original author responded within 14 minutes of his original posting to thank the respondants for the assistance. I think all three used a similar approach, although I think that was more due to the way the question was asked and the problem space than anything else, and each, iirc, added additonal information to the solution in their explanations.

I don't know that a button like that would be helpful, though, and I would think there may be a small window where concurrent additions could still occur. Just a few thoughts.