Dear Monks,

I'm answering myself, but I think now would be the time to add an example of what a 'Related Topics' section could be used for, IMHO.

Last week, I investigated a client suggestion for better packing of a data base by sorting the input file first. Sounds great, but after sorting a 10 million file on Linux, I didn't get the expected results. After further investigation, I found that Perl and the Linux "sort" command were not compatible with the default behavior. I immediately suspected Perl, but after a lot of searching and testing, I pleasantly found that I was wrong - Perl was correct.

The default behavior of the Linux "sort" command doesn't sort in ASCII order. My first impulse was to make the monks on PM aware, but then I thought about when I did this in the past, and got comments about "off-topic" and ignored the impulse.

I don't consider this section for newbies, since they don't care anyway. It's only after being around here for a while, that you care about not angering the good responders( monks ). Maybe this section should only be available by turning it on in your account. Those decisions are for others, but I think it's time for PM to consider this section.

Thanks for listening.

Regards...Ed

"Well done is better than well said." - Benjamin Franklin

In reply to Re: [OT] How about a 'Related Topics' (Off Topic) Section? by flexvault
in thread [OT] How about an Off Topic Section? by flexvault

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