I recognized early on in your post that you respected merlyn, but I wanted to actually vilify anyone who would simply respect the name without reason. To the point, merlyn has given the community probably much more than he can ever get back, but given the intro to the Llama, I'd guess that we can never fully get as much from the community as he gets.

So, while I was sounding harsh, it was more for the onlookers than anyone else I primarily addressed. It's just my style, I guess. I think what made me branch my reply from your post was the comment about block style. It made me feel like you were approaching from a vanity, instead of the message. Note my first paragraph in the initial response. That was actually the only part that I truly wanted to address to you, but I also felt that if I stated it such that I used examples from your statement that could be misconstrued as simple "hero worship", I would effectively make my point.

After all, we're all just perl hackers.

ALL HAIL BRAK!!!

My reasoning behind posting an alternate appearance wasn't vanity, but more of a reminder that elegance (with respect to code) encompasses many elements: utility, effectiveness, structure, layout, intelligent use of the language and its abilities, and so on. Often, when we try to evaluate one implementation's elegance, we (as a race) tend to focus on one element, not the whole. When we do this, we risk inadvertantly dismissing something out of hand because it doesn't conform to our personal set of "coding ethics."

Personally, I often don't realize code is elegant until after I've seen it, played with it, stretched it around, and (quite likely) crashed my server trying to "improve" it. The realization comes unexpectedly, almost in a flash of wonder. "Oh, so that's why it was done that way. Ah-hah!. wow."

Again, I would hope that the community leaders and regulars wouldn't judge the initiates and novices too harshly because our code differs from the norm...when that difference doesn't really matter.

(If there's a security issue or something that's been overlooked technically, well, please....constructive criticism is welcome. I don't think any of us wants to be hacked or really wants to reinvent too many wheels.)

Going back to the snippets, both will compile (assuming I didn't make any typos) and perl will consider them essentially the same. So, if elegance becomes the watchword, doesn't it make sense to recognize the risk of (gently) criticizing things, well, inappropriately?

As an example, there are C++ communities that will stomp on you (hard) if you post something that uses too many lines or doesn't incorporate some exotic trick. As far as I've been able to tell by reading older nodes, that doesn't seem to happen often here. I hope that doesn't change.

-- f

P.S. For what it's worth, this is meant as a simple, conversation of ideas, nothing more. No water needed.

OK, can you elaborate on:

but given the intro to the Llama, I'd guess that we can never fully get as much from the community as he gets.

I'm puzzled by that. What did you mean?

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker

Simply that you seem to enjoy teaching. I know that you weren't responsible for the intro, so it's going to be a fairly accurate view of the type of person you really are in regards to your involvement with the community.

Thus, following the most compelling reason why people enjoy teaching, the response from the community must be a high enough factor for you to stay involved. So, I'm willing to at least state that, given that most people are drawn to discussions in which they can contribute, and that you being one of the penultimate teachers of Perl, it is likely that you get more from the community at large. Note that my connotation of 'contribute' means to both ask and answer.

Simply stated, there is quite possibly no way for me to ask and answer as much as you do (at this point in time). So it's my bet that there is a certain thrill to be involved at your level that I cannot experience entirely.

ALL HAIL BRAK!!!