(this is chromatic, posting without logging in for various reasons you don't really need to know)

Use Perl; has a discussion about the Perl Beginner's list and related article on www.perl.com. (I'm sick of making links already, and I have one to go).

I found clintp's thoughts enlightening, even if I don't totally agree. I don't think there's an epidemic of monastery answers saying, "I can't answer your problem, but let me rewrite your ugly code", though I've seen a few. I do see a lot of golf tournaments, which is not a bad thing in and of itself.

I personally don't think encouraging people to attempt to find answers in the voluminous, ubiquitous documentation is a bad thing. What I consider "encouragement" and "to attempt" may be completely different from what reasonable people understand.

This probably isn't a good discussion topic, because there's so much room for individual responses. I'm personally pretty bored of saying, "use CGI", and if I don't have to say parsing HTML with a regex is difficult again this year, I won't cry.

On the other hand, I'm here to share what wisdom I have with people who don't yet have my experience, for free, so I think I can get away with setting a few expectations.

Where do we draw the line?

In reply to Help Yourself Or Help Others? by Anonymous Monk

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