I think you're right. It's not a failing of Perl that there's no documentation. Far from it, perldoc gives you access to hundreds (thousands?) of pages of information about just about everything you want to know about the language.

Part of the trouble is that beginning Perl is easy. It's fast to program, the syntax doesn't take long to understand, and the change/execute cycle doesn't have long compile/trace/debug steps in it.

The initial investment in starting the language doesn't require learning about dozens of class libraries or pawing through #include'd files. People don't have to read the documentation to start with Perl.

One thing I really appreciated about Elements of Programming with Perl is that Andrew points out the wealth of information available in perldoc on page 12. By the time he introduces Perl syntax proper, he's already demonstrated a program to grep through the perlfaq for keywords. That's really useful -- if you can convince people that the answers to most of their questions are on their hard drives already, thirty seconds away, they won't have to post beginner questions so often.

Some will anyway. That's being realistic about human nature and poor definitions of laziness. But the trick is to make sure that those who can teach themselves know what resources they have available.

I suggest pointing people to the documentation instead of regurgitating code from it. By all means, explain what might be unclear. Just don't steal the opportunity for the petitioners to teach themselves in the process.

In reply to RE: RE: Monk attitude??? by chromatic
in thread Monk attitude??? by Zo

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