Greetings.

While pondering a few moments ago, I thought about how knowing the nomenclature of a subculture/technical discipline/field makes the literature of the community in question accessible. This thought was inspired by reading Ovid's use.perl.org journal. Specifically, the post of Aug 29 titled "I am not you. Please keep that in mind.".

This post begins with the line:

You know, it's OK to suggest that I do X instead of Y. There's a good chance that I'll agree with you. However, there's also a damned good chance that I have a reason for doing Y.

He would have lost me there unless I'd read the PM node XY Problem. In this instance, a specific Perl Monks node was the key to understanding another piece of writing.

I suspect that the Monastery has myriad examples of this... excellent, though sometimes dense nodes that would be more accessible to those learning if there were something to say "these other nodes might help you understand this one".

So, how about a new feature: for each node, users above a certain level can input node ID numbers that they think would explain (or make clearer) the current node. When more than X monks select a node (A) as explaining/greatly helping in understanding another (B), node A becomes an "exegetical" node for B. Or perhaps users above a certain high level get their single votes automatically turned into exegetical nodes.

Then, there could be an optionally displayed section (Exegetical Nodes) that lists all the exegetical nodes for the currently displayed node.

I think this would make PM an even more valuable resource for those learning Perl (at whatever stage). For instance, some of the tutorials are beyond me right now. I would love it if I could follow a chain of links until I reach a related node I understand. Then I could just make my way back up the chain, until (hopefully) I can make sense of the original node I was struggling with.

Well, what think ye, monks? :)

email: perl -e 'print reverse map { chr( ord($_)-1 ) } split //, "\x0bufo/hojsfufqAofc";'

In reply to An exegetical guide to the Monastery (cross referencing) by missingthepoint

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