"As is the case in so much of life, context is everything. Judgement has to enter into it. Personally, I'm inclined to run the risk of helping the lazy to avoid the risk of quelching someone's drive to learn."

I agree, actually, that of course judgement has to enter into it. I'm mostly referring to those who

• remain anonymous (c'mon how expensive or hard is it to create a login here?),
• ask what amount to pretty basic questions which would dissolve in a blaze of obviousness after a reasonably in-depth read of the perlfunc manpage, and
• obviously don't even bother to try searching the PerlMonks site either for previous answers to similar questions

In other words, yes! Use judgement and restraint.

Update: We must never "lump all academic questions into the category of trolls". But we should favor pointing posters in the right direction over completely solving problems for them.

dmm

You can give a man a fish and feed him for a day ...
Or, you can teach him to fish and feed him for a lifetime

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