I've been here since march.

If memory serves me correctly I've been with The Monastery since April of 2001.

I must say that there was a way that I wrote Perl scripts before that and what has become of the way I write Perl now. In the last 5 years (or so) I think there has been an acceleration in my Perl mastery to where I am now.

Why does it work that way? Peer review I think is the #1 reason why you stand a chance of learning so much here. If you post a solution to a problem or even the problem itself I am always amazed and humbled by the number of very creative solutions that Monks come up with to solve it a different way. TIMTOWTDI being one of the mantras here.

Believe it or not, one of the things I like about The Monastery is the fact that the other monks here don't let you get too full of yourself. If you're an ass they let you know it right away in methods that range from very subtle to very blunt.

Prior to arriving at the Monastery I always worked in environments where I was the only Perl scripter around. Folks would bring me problems to solve, I'd write a script to solve it and they thought I was a god because they lacked the skill to do it themselves. As long as I was there to solve it for them they had no reason to gain the knowlege either.

Like any endevour you undertake, learning Perl is a journey. As soon as you think you know it all, you need to do a reality check (sometimes the reality check bounces) and realize there is that much more to learn.