I agree to a point. While I'd hate to see this move from being a perl site to a dumping ground for any question (because I think without the focus the site would flounder), I do feel that there is an unrivaled collection of grey matter floating arounds here. And people with 10-15 years of Perl experience usually have experience in a lot of other areas.
I myself feel confident in answering questions on HTML,DTHML, XML, Javascript, Emacs, Lisp, Tcl, C, C++, Java, Sql, Icon, VB, Excel, Wap, shell scripting, Lex/Yacc, and a lot of other subjects, because in 20 years of coding I've been exposed to a lot of things. There are people here with far more experience, depth and breath than me (not to mention Real Computer Science Degreestm).
It's a shame not to be able to bring these resources to bear on a problem just because it is not exactly perl.
Perl doesn't exist in a vacuum. It runs on OS's, talks to databases and other languages, works with HTML and JavaScript, etc.
Remember, any learning is good learning. I apply things I learned from lisp everyday in perl. I use perl's high-level data structures well, because I had to write them in C and I know how they work and the pitfalls of using them.
I think we can spare the cycles and node space to help perl programmers do their jobs better, even when it involves other technologies. Besides, one day you might be staring art a piece of javascript, desperate for help.

-pete
Entropy is not what is used to be.

In reply to Re: Off Topic section by dreadpiratepeter
in thread Off Topic section by rbc

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