I'm a user since March 13, 2000, and posted my first answer to a question on May 13, 2002, exactly 26 months later. There are a number of reasons why I started posting so late. First of all, when I joined, I did mostly sysadmin work with very little Perl involved. Also, on most sites where I worked, I didn't have an Internet connection (weird as it sounds, it's true :-). At some point I just kinda forgot PM.

In April 2002, I joined a company as a full-time Perl hacker/software engineer. I rediscovered PM and someone asked a question about a module I had some experience with by using it in a project I worked on.

After that, I posted some answers at irregular intervals, although lately I've put in some more time reading questions and answers (lots to be learned there!) and occasionally answering questions. With approval of my manager, no less!

Thinking about questions people ask and reading other people's answers makes one a better programmer kinda by osmosis. Answering questions makes you think even more about stuff (not necessarily programming per se, but also about design and algorithms) and hones ones' skill at answering questions of your collegues. Actively participating in a community is very much a win-win situation for everyone involved.

Arjen

In reply to Re: On Two Years of Silence... by Aragorn
in thread On Two Years of Silence... by tunaboy

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