I'm rather disturbed by the original post on this thread. I admit to being bored by the huge number of very narrow questions that have been posted to PerlMonks recently. I can understand the frustration and even share it, BUT ...

First and foremost,whether or not a question is worthy of an answer should be based on the question itself, not on second guesses about the author's country of origin. The author's tone matters. The author's clarity in posting the question matters. But country of origin? As one of my teachers was fond of saying: "Ideas, good and bad, do not have a pedigree". I found even raising the question of nationality counter productive and detrimental to your main point: "What are the ethical issues in answering a test question posted on Perl Monks?".

Second, if you search on the word "homework" in supersearch I think you will find a wide range of opinions and strategies for dealing with homework questions. There are many ways to provide an answer that does not simply let someone fake knowledge:

• Giving a partial example with some elements "left as an exercise".
• Explaining core concepts.
• Inviting the OP to post some code showing an attempt to apply concepts already explained. And then when the OP posts (they sometimes do), following through with further feedback.

The assumption that people should just "Read the fine manual" because anything else is cheating is a little like saying, "you can't do theoretical math because you weren't born knowing how to write proofs". Writing proofs is a learned skill. Reading documentation is a learned skill.

Maybe the OP's first experience reading through documentation was a walk in the park. But for most of us, myself included, the first forays into the world of technical documentation were more like trying to do the Iron Man competition after a lifetime of couch potato-hood. When we first start reading documentation, understanding it seems like an almost impossible task. Nearly every sentence is laden with unfamilar jargon. Programming concepts essential to understanding the text are rarely identified, let alone explained. It often takes a teacher, mentor at work, or helpful monk to begin peeling away the confusion.

Best, beth

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