I think you're nit-picking. While it's true that a lot of people here tend to yell "Homework, don't help them!" at such nodes, it's by no means a rule of the monastery, and anyone is free to help or not help as they see fit.

Personally, I prefer nodes that have attempted to show their problem using code, but thats mostly because then its easier to see what it is the OP is getting at and thinking. That node looks clear enough that I would probably have answered it giving points to particular functions in the documentation that was needed, or with some psuedocode for the user to try.

Just recently I wondered on this same topic, and came to the conclusion that Perl Monks is not *just* about helping people code, some people come here just looking for / asking about where they can find code to help them with a particular problem, not wanting to code themselves, yet we tend to yell at such people as well.. Why? Some nice hints to go look in the code section are all that is needed..

C.