Greetings, fellow Monks,

I regret that I have been inactive in this grand Monastery for many years. I have actually suffered through several years of damaged cognition, often hopeless that I might never know the joy of hacking together any worthwhile code ever again.

Thankfully my mental faculties have begun to resurface steadily over the past many months. I have become able to read and comprehend and even write some gratifying Perl again. After prolonged hibernation and dormancy, I am thrilled to be able to read and understand /. and HackerNews again. I have missed this place and am glad I could now remember my old login info. Seeing jdporter's sig made me expect to have become a Zombie, but I am relieved my history qualified beyond such a fate.

It's good to be back here, and able to begin learning new complexities again. Yesterday I was fascinated to learn about cryptocurrencies in some thorough detail. I have begun delving into distributed development techniques and challenges. There are so many newer languages and frameworks out now to explore and learn from.

I would like to weigh in on this comment thread in wholehearted agreement with BrowserUk and the OP flexvault. I believe our PerlMonks community would do well to persuade our elders that christening a new "Off Topic" or "Related Discussions" section would be a significant improvement.

I echo all the good reasons presented above, and similarly struggle to identify likely downsides. I understand the ongoingly valid reasons not to endorse wanton inclusion of frivolous new topical sections, but I see "Off Topic" as wholly warranted and broadly enriching.

I would also like to say that the Anonymous cowards who demonstrate contentedness with a contribution of sardonic insults, wisecracks, and bravado exemplify the antithesis of Monk-like devotion. Such belligerent disruption should be recognized as vastly more distressing than any amount of newly acceptable non-Perl, yet still expectedly positive and virtuous, software discussion threads could be.

Thank you for considering my opinion.

Peace - Pip@CPAN.Org

In reply to Re^4: [OT] How about an Off Topic Section? (When reason fails...) by PipTigger
in thread [OT] How about an Off Topic Section? by flexvault

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.