I'm not disagreeing with your assessment of the module, but I think your approach could have been more tactful to say the least.

You've written an extremely harsh and personally aimed review of his work (and intelligence), posted it at a community he is not part of, and invited him to be mocked. Real f**cking nice.

You could have accomplished the same goals without making the author feel like a d**k.

• You could have written the author with the critiques and given him a chance to respond or patch. I'm sure most active CPAN authors would respond. While the are obvious huge problems in execution, the author was trying to make a contribution to the community and you single him out and attack him. What good is that? Perhaps he just won't contribute anymore. Maybe that's a good thing, maybe it's not. I think not. Perhaps this code is just a reflection of his stage of learning Perl. Let's say a year from now he is a much better programmer with something of value to contribute to the community, will he? Will others?
• You could have written this as a review and just posted it here. That would have accomplished the same thing, just without the personal attacks ("You are a fool, but you probably realised that by now. ","but I guess Tommy Butler never read the perlfaqs") .

So what did your personal attack accomplish that the preceding two items wouldn't have? You made the author feel like an ass and less likely to contribute to the community. That's the only difference.

You remind me of Mr Garrison on South Park. "Remember, there are no stupids question, just stupid people." This type of personal attack, to me, runs against the grain of "the community" as I know it and is probably as harmful to the community in the long run as fubar modules.

-Lee

"To be civilized is to deny one's nature."

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