If you think Tye stopped coming around because I questioned the basis of his autocratic authority; you didn't know Tye very well.

I miss him too. We had some quite wonderful arguments and I learned a huge amount from him.

I also miss a whole raft of other monks that no longer come around, from broquaint on up; many of whom moved on despite my never having crossed swords with them.

You and I have crossed swords -- as well as having had some positive and productive discussions -- and you're still here.

I barely interact here these days not because I've lost my love of Perl(5), but because

• it has ceased to be a tool that clients will accept for those few bits of work I still take on.

  A reflection of the perception, if not reality, in the wider world that Perl hasn't moved on in the last 10 years.

• this place no longer provides the ready source of intellectually challenging and stimulating problems that it once did.

  A reflection that very few people are using Perl for interesting work these days.

• and the continuing distaste this place has for off-topic questions means I now seek my answers elsewhere.

  Almost all of the questions I might ask here involve programming at some level; and many could be coerced such that I could ask them in terms of Perl code -- as I have done many times in the past -- but the best questions become muddied by their coercion into Perl programming and it limits the scope and breadth of the responses.

  Besides which it gets tedious to keep performing that coercion.